Ce:YAG scintillation crystal
Cerium doped yttrium aluminum garnet (Ce:Y3Al5O12, or Ce:YAG) crystal with the same excellent chemical-mechanical-thermal properties as YAG host, is a well-established non-hydroscopic and chemically inert inorganic scintillation crystal characterized by relatively high light yield (21% NaI:Tl) and reasonable fast decay time (70ns). The distinguished feature of Ce:YAG scintillation crystal is that its maximum emission at 550nm is well matched to CCD sensitivity. These attractive properties make Ce:YAG scintillator be very useful in the applications of light charged particles detection, beta and X-ray counting, electron and X-ray imaging screens etc. It is noted that Ce:YAG crystal can be very interesting candidate for electron microscopy applications instead of commonly used phosphors due to its specific properties of high electron conversion efficiency, good resolution, extremely high thermal conductivity, long life- time, and vacuum compatibility etc.
The main properties and specifications of Ce:YAG scintillation crystal were tabulated as below.
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Main properties of Ce:YAG crystal |
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Crystal structure |
Cubic/garnet |
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Density |
4.55 g/cm3 |
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Melting point |
1875oC |
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Hardness |
8-8.5 Mohs |
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Thermal Conductivity |
13 Wm-1K-1 at 298K |
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Maximum emission wavelength |
550 nm |
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Refractive index at 550nm |
1.82 |
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Relative light output |
15-20 % NaI:Tl |
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Light yield, photon per KeV |
8(linearly increase with incident energy) |
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Decay time |
70 ns |
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Main specifications of Ce:YAG crystal |
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Dimension |
Dia. Up to 100mm, ThK. of 0.1-20mm (±0.05mm), or upon customers’ request |
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Flatness |
Lambda at 633 nm per inch |
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Surface quality |
40/20; 20/10 |
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Parallelism |
less than 10 arc seconds |
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Bevels |
(0.2-0.5)mm x 45° |
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