Organic phosphorescent scintillation from copolymers by X-ray irradiation
Nan Gan, Xin Zou, Mengyang Dong, Yanze Wang, Xiao Wang, Anqi Lv, Zhicheng Song, Yuanyuan Zhang, Wenqi Gong, Zhu Zhao, Ziyang Wang, Zixing Zhou, Huili Ma, Xiaowang Liu, Qiushui Chen, Huifang Shi, Huanghao Yang, Long Gu, Zhongfu An, Wei Huang
Abstract
Scintillators that exhibit X-ray-excited luminescence have great potential in radiation detection, X-ray imaging, radiotherapy, and non-destructive testing. However, most reported scintillators are limited to inorganic or organic crystal materials, which have some obstacles in repeatability and processability. Here we present a facile strategy to achieve the X-ray-excited organic phosphorescent scintillation from amorphous copolymers through the copolymerization of the bromine-substituted chromophores and acrylic acid. These polymeric scintillators exhibit efficient X-ray responsibility and decent phosphorescent quantum yield up to 51.4% under ambient conditions. The universality of the design principle was further confirmed by a series of copolymers with multi-color radioluminescence ranging from green to orange-red. Moreover, we demonstrated their potential application in X-ray radiography. This finding not only outlines a feasible principle to develop X-ray responsive phosphorescent polymers, but also expands the potential applications of polymer materials with phosphorescence features.