Investigation into Nanostructured Lanthanum Halides and CeBr3 for Nuclear Radiation Detection

Nanocomposites may enable the use of scintillator materials such as cerium-doped lanthanum fluoride (LaF3:Ce) and cerium bromide (CeBr3) without requiring the growth of large crystals 1 . Nanostructured detectors may allow us to engineer immensely sized detectors of flexible form factors that will have a broad energy range and an energy resolution sufficient to perform isotopic identification. Furthermore, nanocomposites are easy to prepare and very low in cost. It is much less costly to use nanocomposites rather than grow large whole crystals of scintillator materials; with nanocomposites fabricated on an industrial scale, costs are even less. Nanostructured radiation scintillator detectors may improve quantum efficiency and provide vastly improved detector form factors. Quantum efficiencies up to 60% have been seen in photoluminescence from silicon nanocrystals in a densely packed ensemble 2 . We have fabricated nanoparticles with sizes <10 nm and characterized their nanocomposite radiation detector properties. This work investigates the properties of the nanostructured radiation scintillator in order to extend the gamma energy response on both low- and high-energy regimes by demonstrating the ability to detect low-energy x-rays and relatively high-energy activation prompt gamma rays simultaneously using nanostructured lanthanum bromide, lanthanum fluoride, or CeBr3. Preliminary results of this investigation are consistent with a significant response of these materials to nuclear radiation.