npj Flexible Electronics (May 2024)

Ultrastable and flexible glass−ceramic scintillation films with reduced light scattering for efficient X−ray imaging

  • Ruizi Li,
  • Weiguo Zhu,
  • Haoyang Wang,
  • Yitong Jiao,
  • Yuan Gao,
  • Ruikun Gao,
  • Riheng Wang,
  • Hongxiao Chao,
  • Aimin Yu,
  • Xiaowang Liu

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41528-024-00319-x
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 1
pp. 1 – 10

Abstract

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Abstract The thickness of the scintillation films in indirect X−ray detectors can significantly influence their luminescence intensity. However, due to the scattering and attenuation of incoherent photons, thick scintillation films tend to reduce light yield. Herein, a highly transparent perovskite glass−ceramic scintillation film, in which the CsPbBr3 nanocrystals are in-situ grown inside a transparent amorphous polymer structure, is designed to achieve ultrastable and efficient X-ray imaging. The crystal coordination−topology growth and in−situ film formation strategy is proposed to control the crystal growth and film thickness, which can prevent light scattering and non−uniform distribution of CsPbBr3 nanocrystals while providing sufficient film thickness to absorb X−ray, thus enabling a high−quality glass−ceramic scintillator without agglomeration and Ostwald ripening. This glass−ceramic scintillation film with a thickness of 250 μm achieves a low detection limit of 326 nGyair s−1 and a high spatial resolution of 13.9 lp mm−1. More importantly, it displays remarkable scintillation stability under X−ray irradiation (radiation intensity can still reach 95% at 278 μGyair s−1 for 3600 s), water soaking (150 days), and high−temperature storage (150 days at 60 °C). Hence, this work presents a approach to construct ultrastable and flexible scintillation films for X−ray imaging with reduced light scattering and improved resolution.