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Published on: May 29, 2018
Explanation for the Multi-Component Scintillation of Cerium Fluoride Through the Equilibrium and Photophysical
Zsolt Valicsek1, Máté Kovács2, Ottó Horváth3
1Department of General and Inorganic Chemistry, Faculty of Engineering, University of Pannonia, Egyetem u. 10, H-8200 Veszprém, Hungary. valicsek@almos.uni-pannon.hu.
Abstract:
CeF3 displays favorable scintillation properties, which have been utilized for decades in various solid-state systems. Its emission undergoes multi-component decays, which were interpreted by lattice defects and so-called intrinsic features herein. This study of the complex equilibria in connection with photophysical behavior of the cerium(III)-fluoride system in solution gave us the possibility to reveal the individual contribution of the [CeIIIFx(H2O)9-x]3-x species to the photoluminescence. Spectrophotometry and spectrofluorometry (also in time-resolved mode) were used, and combined with sophisticated evaluation methods regarding both the complex equilibria and the kinetics of the photoinduced processes. The individual photophysical parameters of the [CeIIIFx(H2O)9-x]3-x complexes were determined. For the kinetic evaluation, three methods of various simplifications were applied and compared. The results indicated that the rates of some excited-state equilibrium processes were comparable to those of the emission decay steps. Our results also contribute to the explanation of the multi-component emission decays in the CeF3-containing scintillators, due to the various coordination environments of Ce3+, which can be affected by the excitation leading to the dissociation of the metal-ligand bonds.
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