Optical properties of Ce3+-doped sol–gel silicate glasses

The sol–gel technique has been considered for the preparation of Ce3+-doped silicate scintillating glasses. Ce3+ concentrations in the range 0.1–1 mol% have been studied. The structural and optical properties of the glasses have been investigated by several techniques like Raman spectroscopy, radio-luminescence, time resolved luminescence, and wavelength resolved thermally stimulated luminescence. Particular attention has been paid to the influence of the concentration of dopant ions and to the different phases of the xerogel densification process governing the glass formation. The results achieved indicate that Ce3+ activators possess promising optical features in the considered glass matrix both for what concerns the luminescence efficiency and the scintillation decay time (of approximately 50 ns under 22Na excitation).