Organic–inorganic hybrid perovskite scintillators for mixed field radiation detection
Mengling Xia, Guangda Niu, Linyue Liu, Runlong Gao, Tong Jin, Pengying Wan, Weicheng Pan, Xianpeng Zhang, Zuoxiang Xie, Sam Teale, Zenghua Cai, Jiajun Luo, Shan Zhao, Haodi Wu, Shiyou Chen, Zhiping Zheng, Qingguo Xie, Xiaoping Ouyang, Edward H. Sargent, Jiang Tang
Abstract
Abstract Sensitive and fast detection of neutrons and gamma rays is vital for homeland security, high‐energy physics, and proton therapy. Fast‐neutron detectors rely on light organic scintillators, and γ‐ray detectors use heavy inorganic scintillators and semiconductors. Efficient mixed‐field detection using a single material is highly challenging due to their contradictory requirements. Here we report hybrid perovskites (C 8 H 12 N) 2 Pb(Br 1− x Cl x ) 4 that combine light organic cations and heavy inorganic skeletons at a molecular level to achieve unprecedented performance for mixed‐field radiation detection. High neutron absorption due to a high density of hydrogen, strong radiative recombination within the highly confined [PbX 6 ] 4− layer, and sub‐nanometer distance between absorption sites and radiative centers, enable a light yield of 41 000 photons/MeV, detection pulse width of 2.97 ns and extraordinary linearity response toward both fast neutrons and γ‐rays, outperforming commonly used fast‐neutron scintillators. Neutron energy spectrum, time‐of‐flight based fast‐neutron/γ‐ray discrimination and neutron yield monitoring were all successfully achieved using (C 8 H 12 N) 2 Pb(Br 0.95 Cl 0.05 ) 4 detectors. We further demonstrate the monitoring of reaction kinetics and total power of a nuclear fusion reaction. We envision that molecular hybridized scintillators open a new avenue for mixed‐field radiation detection and imaging. image