Water-dispersible X-ray scintillators enabling coating and blending with polymer materials for multiple applications

Developing X-ray scintillators that are water-dispersible, compatible with polymeric matrices, and processable to flexible substrates is an important challenge. Herein, Tb³⁺-doped Na₅Lu₉F₃₂ is introduced as an X-ray scintillating material with steady-state X-ray light yields of 15,800 photons MeV^-1, which is generated as nanocrystals on halloysite nanotubes. The obtained product exhibits good water-dispersibility and highly sensitive luminescence to X-rays. It is deposited onto a polyurethane foam to afford a composite foam material with dose-dependent radioluminescence. Moreover, the product is dispersed into polymer matrixes in aqueous solution to prepare rigid or flexible scintillator screen for X-ray imaging. As a third example, it is incorporated multilayer hydrogels for information camouflage and multilevel encryption. Encrypted information can be recognized only by X-ray irradiation, while the false information is read out under UV light. Altogether, we demonstrate that the water-dispersible scintillators are highly promising for aqueous processing of radioluminescent, X-ray imaging, and information encrypting materials.