The Saturation of the Response to an Electron Beam of Ce- and Tb-Doped GYAGG Phosphors for Indirect β-Voltaics

Abstract

GYAGG:Tb (Ce) scintillators have been confirmed to be promising sources of light emission when excited by an intense 150 keV electron beam. The saturation of the scintillation yield under such excitation conditions has been studied. To explain the results obtained, a model that considers the Auger quenching mechanism was used. The Ce-doped material did not show saturation, whereas a moderate 30% drop of the yield was measured in the Tb-doped sample at the highest excitation beam intensity ~1 A/cm2. This put forward a way to exploit the Tb-doped scintillator for indirect β-voltaic batteries.

Keywords

• scintillation
• quaternary garnet
• terbium
• light yield
• decay time
• saturation