Stoichiometric cerium compounds as scintillators. I. CeF3

The authors present a study of the scintillation cerium trifluoride, CeF₃. They have investigated spectroscopy of CeF ₃ using optical and ionizing radiation excitations. It was shown that rapid quenching of Ce emission in this material was responsible for the loss of about 50% of the light output and generated the so-called ultra-fast component. This ultra-fast component provided evidence of nonradiative quenching, and therefore limited the efficiency. Additional competition came from unidentified centers, probably due to perturbed Ce ions. Although the light output of CeF₃ was only about 50% of BGO, the potential for large improvement was demonstrated