Nanocomposite Scintillator for Detection of Nuclear Radiation

Recent advances in scintillator materials research have resulted in the development of lanthanum halides detectors. These detectors offer improved energy resolution, faster emission and excellent temperature dependency and linearity characteristics. However, the lanthanum halides crystals have not yet been grown to preferred large sizes. Moreover, this material possesses a fatal drawback of being high hygroscopic, which makes its processing and handling difficult. In this project, Boston Applied Technologies, Inc. (BATi) proposes to synthesize a transparent nanocomposite of lanthanum halides scintillator materials. A salted sol-gel (SSG) method, which has been developed recently for producing nano-phosphors in our lab, will be used to synthesize the nanocomposites. This novel lanthanum halides nanocomposite scintillator will provide a low-cost, large-volume, high performance scintillators to meet the DoD requirement for field ruggedness and adverse operating environments.