Publication date: 19th April 2024
The use of scintillators for the detection of ionising radiation is critical in many fields, including medicine, nuclear monitoring and homeland security. Lead halide perovskite nanocrystals (LHP-NCs) embedded in plastic matrices are emerging as promising scintillator materials that overcome the drawbacks of conventional types of scintillator materials (namely inorganic crystals and plastic scintillators) and capitalise on their strengths. Importantly, the use of LHP-NCs as nanoscintillators in polymer waveguides not only offers a solution to overcome the scalability limitations of conventional materials, but also potentially enhances the scintillation performance. This is due to the unique photophysics of quantum-confined materials, which provide size-tunable emission spectra that perfectly match the spectral sensitivity of light detectors, and ultrafast sub-nanosecond scintillation kinetics resulting from the recombination of multi-excitons generated upon interaction with ionising radiation.
However, significant challenges remain to affordably upscale synthesis to the multi-gram level, embed LHP-NCs in optical-grade nanocomposites without compromising their optical properties, and deeply understand the fundamental aspects of nanoscale scintillation mechanisms.
In this talk, I will present our recent progress in the fabrication of nanocomposite scintillators based on LHP-NCs. Several approaches for effective integration into plastic waveguides will be disclosed, including NC functionalisation strategies, defect passivation and advanced polymerisation routes. The interplay between NCs and different matrices will be elucidated and fundamental aspects of scintillation photophysics will be discussed, including particle size and fine structure effects towards highly efficient and ultrafast scintillation.
This work was funded by Horizon Europe EIC Pathfinder program through project 101098649 – UNICORN, by the PRIN program of the Italian Ministry of University and Research (IRONSIDE project), by the European Union—NextGenerationEU through the Italian Ministry of University and Research under PNRR—M4C2-I1.3 Project PE_00000019 “HEAL ITALIA”, and by European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 101004761 (AIDAINNOVA).
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