Scintillation properties of Ce3+ doped BaF2 crystals

This paper reports on the scintillation properties of cylindrically shaped 01 inch x 1 inch, BaF2 crystals and crystals with dimensions 30 x 30 x 4.5 mm doped with 0.2, 0.3, 0.5, 0.8, and 1.0 mol% Ce3+ studied by means of X-ray and gamma ray excitation. Optical transmission, X-ray induced emission, and decay time spectra will be presented. The photoelectron yield/MeV was measured with an XP2020Q photomultiplier tube. The 0.2 mol% doped crystal shows the largest light yield, 1550 phe/MeV, with a dominant decay component of 210 ns. For the 1.0 mol% doped crystal values of 871 phe/MeV and 97 ns were observed. The crystals scintillate at wavelengths larger than 300 nm and the scintillation light can be detected with glass windowed photomultiplier tubes