Environmentally stable one-dimensional copper halide based ultra-flexible composite film for low-cost X-ray imaging screens

Environmentally stable, low cost, large stokes shift, adjustable area and flexibility are basic factors to prepare scintillator films for their commercial application. Here, a low cost (similar to 3 $/g) room-temperature ligand-assisted reprecipitation method is used to synthesize one-dimensional crystal structure based on Rb2CuX3 (X = Br, Cl). Rb2CuBr3 exhibits quite high mass yield of 90% with high Photoluminescence quantum yield (PLOY) of 59.06%. Importantly, its bright blue emission (90 nm stokes shift) is consistent with the highest optical detection efficiency wavelength range of commercial SiPM. Further characterizations point out that such effective blue emission comes from the recombination of excitons rather than the defects or combination of electron-hole pairs. And the existing strong exciton-photon coupling is conducive to the formation of self-trapped excitons (STEs). Finally, uniform and adjustable area Rb2CuBr3-polystyrene composite films have been successfully obtained. It's fascinating that the films exhibit ultra-flexibility (unchanged performance after multiple bending of 400 times) and excellent stability (subtle attenuation after 30 days of storage in a harsh environment). As an X-ray imaging screen, it presents a sensitive scintillation response to X-ray signals with superior linearity with high-quality images. Therefore, our prepared Rb2CuBr3 scintillator shows great commercial prospects in the field of flexible X-ray detection.