Luminescence and Scintillation in the Niobium Doped Oxyfluoride Rb₄Ge₅O₉F₆:Nb

Author(s)

Darren Carone
Vladislav V. Klepov, University of South Carolina - ColumbiaFollow
Scott T. Misture
Joseph C. Schaeperkoetter
Luiz G. Jacobsohn
Mina Aziziha
Juliano Schorne-Pinto
Stuart A. J. Thomson
Adrian T. Hines
Theodore M. Besmann, University of South Carolina - ColumbiaFollow
Hans Conrad zur Loye, University of South Carolina - ColumbiaFollow

Document Type

Article

Abstract

A new niobium-doped inorganic scintillating oxyfluoride, Rb₄Ge₅O₉F₆:Nb, was synthesized in single crystal form by high-temperature flux growth. The host structure, Rb₄Ge₅O₉F₆, crystallizes in the orthorhombic space group Pbcn with lattice parameters a = 6.98430(10) Å, b = 11.7265(2) Å, and c = 19.2732(3) Å, consisting of germanium oxyfluoride layers made up of Ge₃O₉ units connected by GeO₃F₃ octahedra. In its pure form, Rb₄Ge₅O₉F₆ shows neither luminescence nor scintillation but when doped with niobium, Rb₄Ge₅O₉F₆:Nb exhibits bright blue luminescence and scintillation. The isostructural doped structure, Rb₄Ge₅O₉F₆:Nb, crystallizes in the orthorhombic space group Pbcn with lattice parameters a = 6.9960(3) Å, b = 11.7464(6) Å, and c = 19.3341(9) Å. X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) and extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) measurements suggest that the niobium is located in an octahedral coordination environment. Optical measurements inform us that the niobium dopant acts as the activator. The synthesis, structure, and optical properties are reported, including radioluminescence (RL) measurements under X-ray irradiation.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.3390/inorganics10060083

Publication Info

Published in Inorganics, Volume 10, Issue 6, 2022, pages 83-.

Rights

© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

APA Citation

Carone, D., Klepov, V., Misture, S., Schaeperkoetter, J., Jacobsohn, L., & Aziziha, M. et al. (2022). Luminescence and Scintillation in the Niobium Doped Oxyfluoride Rb4Ge5O9F6:Nb. Inorganics, 10(6), 83. https://doi.org/10.3390/inorganics10060083