Investigation of Cerium-Doped Barium Fluoride

BaF2 doped with cerium in the 2.7-4.5 mol percent range has been shown to have a peak scintillation emission at 365 nm with a decay constant of approximately 50 nano-seconds. The relative light output decreases with increasing cerium content; in this work it ranged from 0.5 to 0.3 with respect to pure BaF2 and from 1.2 to 0.7 relative to CsF. Pulse height resolution for the BaF2(Ce) samples ranged from 1.7 to 2.0 times that for pure BaF2. Timing measurements show that coincident resolving times for BaF2(Ce) lie between those of pure BaF2 and CsF and those of BGO. The scintillation efficiency was found to be independent of temperature from room temperature to 70°C and to fall off moderately at higher temperatures.