Difficulties and improvement in growth of Europium doped Strontium Iodide (SrI2:Eu2+) scintillator single crystal for radiation detection applications

Highlights: • Insoluble impurities were filtered by frit filter method. • SrI₂:Eu²⁺ single crystal was grown by vertical Bridgman – Stockbarger technique. • The sharp emission was recorded at 432 nm. • The energy resolution of the grown crystal was found to be 4.6% at 662 KeV. The molten salt of Strontium Iodide (SrI₂) and Europium Iodide (EuI₂) was filtered by specially designed dual chamber quartz ampoule using micro frit filter. Eu²⁺ doped SrI₂ single crystal was grown by modified transparent vertical Bridgman technique. Photoluminescence (PL) excitation and emission (PLE) were recorded for the grown crystal. The characteristic emission of Eu²⁺ was observed at 432 nm. Similar emission was observed at 435 nm, when the sample was excited by X-ray source also. Scintillation properties of the SrI₂:Eu²⁺ crystal were checked by the gamma ray spectrometer using ¹³⁷Cs, ⁵⁷Co and ⁶⁰Co gamma sources. The energy resolutions of the grown crystal were found to be 4.6% at 662 KeV, 7.5% at 122 KeV and 9.8% at 1332 KeV. The Scintillation decay profile was also analyzed. The scintillation decay time of Eu²⁺ ion was calculated to be 1.26 μs for SrI₂:Eu²⁺ single crystal.