Incorporation of copper iodide cluster into silica coating by silane coupling reagent (SCR)-assisted-grafting method...

It is of great significance to develop new scintillator materials that can be integrated into flexible systems with uniform morphology, environmentally friendly composition, stable chemical properties and high performance. In this work, a strategy specifically for synthesizing highly transparent flexible scintillator screen is presented. The "Silane Coupling Reagent (SCR)-assisted-grafting" method is used at the molecular level to controllably bond copper iodide clusters with X-ray radioluminescence properties to the cross-linked skeleton of the organic-inorganic hybrid coating through chemical bonds to construct a new cluster-based hybrid functional material Cu₄I₄-Si_mO_nPh_x coating. Thanks to the molecular-scale distribution of the luminescent -Cu₄I₄- clusters, the coating achieves a transparency of up to 98 %, which contributes to a high spatial resolution of 20 lp/mm when used as an X-ray scintillator screen. The material also exhibits remarkable stability under X-ray irradiation and in water, and can be coated onto flexible substrates, which will offer a big step forward in expanding the application range of scintillators in different environments.