Photo‐ and Radioluminescence Properties of (Gd³⁺/Ce³⁺) Coupled Ions Activated Sodium‐Aluminum‐Oxyfluoride‐Phosphate Glasses for X‐ray Detecting Material

Oxyfluoride‐based sodium‐aluminum‐phosphate glasses with a fixed 7 mol% content of Gd₂O₃ and various amounts of CeF₃ were fabricated by the melt quenching process. The fabricated glasses (NAPGCe) were studied by physical, optical, scintillation, and light yield properties. In NAPGCe glasses, intense emission peaks were observed at 312 nm (⁶P_7/2 → ⁸S_7/2) for Gd³⁺ and 336 nm (5d → 4f) for Ce³⁺ ions in both photoluminescence (275 and 294 nm) and radioluminescence (X‐ray) spectra. Upon excitation with 275 nm ultraviolet radiation, a decrease in Gd³⁺ emission and an increase in Ce³⁺ emission intensity lead to efficient energy transfer (ET) from Gd³⁺ to Ce³⁺ ion in NAPGCe glasses. The bi‐exponential function was applied to fit the non‐exponential decay curves of NAPGCe glasses and then calculated their lifetimes in the order of fast (18.25–16.94 ns) and slow (72.99–67.74 ns) decay times. An overall integrated scintillation efficiency of about 67% was estimated for NAPGCe0.10 glass compared to bismuth germanate oxide (BGO:Bi₄Ge₃O₁₂) crystal. Under ²⁴¹Am α‐ray (5.5 MeV) source, the light yield of the NAPGCe1.00 glass was obtained by comparing it with a commercial Li‐glass scintillator (GS20), and it was found to be 26 photons MeV⁻¹.