Investigation of some scintillation properties of YAG:Ce crystals

A light output expressed in the photoelectron (phe) number, a relative light yield for α-particles and light pulse shapes for γ-rays and α-particles excitation of the YAG:Ce crystals with different Ce doping between 0.012 and 1.08 mol% were studied. The highest light output of 1420 ± 70 phe/MeV was measured for the sample doped with 0.21 ± 0.03 mol% Ce, while the fastest pulse was observed for the sample doped with 1.08 ± 0.08 mol% Ce showing, however, lower light yield by 10%. The relative light yield for α-particles of 0.21 ± 0.03 as compared to γ-rays was approximately the same for all the samples studied. In conclusion, the YAG:Ce crystal doped with about 1 mol% of Ce is the most appropriate for different applications. For this crystal the α-γ discrimination by digital charge comparison method was studied. A clear separation was observed with the YAG crystal coupled to the XP2020Q photomultiplier for 5.49 MeV α-particles from 241Am source and 6.04 MeV as well as 8.77 MeV from ThC source. However, this separation was inferior compared to that known for CsI(Tl).