Scintillation and optical properties of TiO₂-ZnO-Al₂O₃-B₂O₃ glasses and glass-ceramics

13TiO₂-xZnO-17Al₂O₃-(70 - x)B₂O₃ (x = 17, 26, and 35) glasses were prepared by a melt-quenching method, and the obtained glass samples were heated at temperatures 30 °C above the glass transition temperature of corresponding glass in order to obtain glass-ceramics. The obtained glass-ceramic samples were confirmed to have anatase (x = 17) and rutile (x = 26 and 35) phases from X-ray diffraction analysis. Then, the scintillation and optical properties were evaluated and discussed the difference between the glass-ceramic and glass samples. In the scintillation spectra under X-ray irradiation, a broad emission peak was observed around 450 nm in all the samples, and the new peak around 500 nm appeared in the anatase-precipitated glass-ceramic. The intensities of the glass-ceramic samples were enhanced in comparison with the corresponding glasses because the glass-ceramics includes TiO₂ crystallites with defect centers which act as effective emission centers. The scintillation decay curves of the glass and glass-ceramic samples were approximated by one and a sum of two exponential decay functions, respectively. The faster component of glass and glass-ceramic samples would be caused by the host emission, and the slower component of glass-ceramic sample would be ascribed to the emission of Ti³⁺. (author)