The Radiation Hard BGO Crystals for Astrophysics Applications

The scintillation crystal bismuth germanate Bi4Ge3O12 (BGO) is widely used in many applications. The unique technique developed in the Nikolaev Institute of Inorganic Chemistry, Novosibirsk, Russia, allows routine production of top quality large-sized BGO crystals. One of the important properties of a scintillation crystal is its radiation hardness. The intensive study of the radiation hardness of BGO crystals has been carried out by the collaboration of the Institutes of Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Science, Novosibirsk. The influence of the raw material purity and growth procedure on radiation hardness has been studied. The final tests of the crystal radiation hardness were performed by irradiating it with gamma rays from the Cs-137 radioactive source. The degradation of a light output of the best crystals is less than 10% after irradiation with doses of 10-100 krad expected in astrophysics experiments at a satellite. Based on the results of this study, the radiation hard BGO crystals for the "INTEGRAL" and "ASTRO-H" satellite missions have been made. A selfrecovery of the crystal light output is clearly seen. The time scale of the selfrecovery strongly depends on a dose of irradiation. It is days for 1 krad irradiation, weeks - for a 10 krad dose and a much longer period is required for 100 krad irradiation. All the crystals irradiated with a dose of 100 krad completely recover after annealing. The study reveals that there will be no essential degradation if this dose will be integrated over years of operation.