Chiral Hybrid Cu(I) Halide Scintillation Films with Polarization-Engineered Light Management for High-Resolution...

Scintillators are typically based on achiral structures, where the emitted light propagates isotropically, resulting in significant optical crosstalk and reduced image fidelity in X-ray imaging. In this study, we design the synthesis of a pair of chiral hybrid Cu(I) halide scintillators, R-2-MePiCuI and S-2-MePiCuI (R/S-2-MePi = R/S-2-methylpiperazine), exhibiting near-unity photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) of 99.08% ± 0.21% and 98.38% ± 0.19%, respectively, along with distinct circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) and dissymmetry factors (g_lum) of + 0.82 × 10^-2 and -0.67 × 10^-2. Furthermore, high-quality chiral Cu(I) halide thin films have been fabricated using a multi-source vacuum deposition (MSVD) technique, enabling dense and uniform scintillating layers. A polarized system is developed by combining the chiral thin film scintillator with polarization optics, enabling directional radioluminescence propagation and suppressing optical crosstalk. The resulting device achieves a high spatial resolution of 20 lp mm^-1 and an ultralow detection limit of 99.22 nGy s^-1. These findings establish chiral hybrid Cu(I) halides as promising candidates for high-resolution X-ray imaging with synergetic light management.