Temperature-Adaptive Organic Scintillators for X-ray Radiography.

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Organic Electronics
• Radiological Physics

Background:

• Organic scintillators using phosphorescence or TADF are sensitive to temperature variations, affecting radioluminescence performance.
• Efficient utilization of triplet excitons is crucial for scintillator applications but often limited by thermal quenching.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop temperature-adaptive organic scintillators with dual phosphorescence and TADF emission.
• To achieve efficient and stable radioluminescence across a broad temperature spectrum (77–400 K).

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of organic scintillators exhibiting both phosphorescence and TADF mechanisms.
• Characterization of photoluminescence quantum yield and light yield under UV and X-ray excitation.
• Evaluation of detection limits and spatial resolution at various temperatures.

Main Results:

• The developed scintillators demonstrate dual emission, automatically switching modes with temperature.
• Achieved high photoluminescence quantum yield (83.2%) and light yield (78,229 ± 562 photons MeV^-1).
• Exhibited low detection limits (51 nGy·s^-1 at room temp, 23 nGy·s^-1 at 77 K) and high spatial resolution (21.7 lp mm^-1).

Conclusions:

• The novel organic scintillators offer stable radioluminescence performance from 77 to 400 K.
• Demonstrated potential for multi-temperature X-ray radiography applications.
• Paved a new path for developing temperature-resilient organic scintillators for sensitive imaging.