Thermal robust rare-Earth halide scintillators

High-temperature scintillators are critical components for X-ray imaging technique used in extreme environments such as oil well-logging, nuclear reactors and industrial inspections. There are a large number of lead-free metal halides such as Cu and Mn-based perovskites have high brightness, but these metal halides suffer from severe thermal quenching.

Here, we find rare-earth metal halide perovskites are promising high-temperature scintillators due to their remarkable thermal stability, displaying only slight or even anti-thermal quenching properties. This thermally stable emission up to 423 K results from their high Debye temperature (>200 K) and thermally-stable energy transfer efficiency.

The findings provide insights into bolstering the structural rigidity of Lu-halide perovskites in achieving thermally-stable luminescence for high-temperature scintillators.

The work titled “Leveraging Structural Rigidity for Thermal Robust Scintillation in Rare-Earth Halide Perovskites”, was published on Advanced Powder Materials (published on Nov. 7, 2025).