Further study on different dopings into PbWO4 single crystals to increase the scintillation light yield

Since we presented our preliminary result (Nucl. Instr. and Meth. A 486 (2002) 170) at SCINT2001, we have continued our efforts to increase the light yield (LY) of PbWO4 scintillators by extending different dopings with an aim to find a possibility of using PbWO4 successfully in Positron Emission Tomography (PET). Overall result obtained for single doping as well as double and tripple co-dopings are summarized, including decay characteristics and radiation hardness. The LY in non-doped PbWO4 crystals with a size of 10×10×(20–30) mm3 is 25–35 photolectrons/MeV (phe/MeV) corresponding to 3–4% of the LY in BGO, when measured with a bialkali photomultiplier during a gate of ∼1 μs. The maximum LY increased to 49 phe/MeV for single doping with Mo6+, 80 phe/MeV for double co-doping of Mo6++Sb5+, and ∼85 phe/MeV for tripple co-doping of Mo6++Cd2++Sb5+. The radiation hardness is larger than 105 Gy for each of the samples co-doped with Mo6++Sb5+ and Mo6++Cd2++Sb5+, while it is much poorer in PWO:Mo6+. In each of these co-doped samples, a medium-speed green emission in the microsecond range is created besides the fundamental fast (∼a few nanoseconds range) blue one, giving a peak at ∼500 nm in the radioluminescence spectrum similarly as in PWO:Mo6+.