Nanocrystalline Mg-Doped Zinc Oxide Scintillator for UV Detectors

NASA uses detectors for a broad range of wavelengths from UV to gamma for applications in astrophysics, earth science, heliophysics, and planetary science. Mg-doped ZnO exhibits room temperature, sub-nanosecond luminescence making it promising for use as a scintillator for UV detectors. The realization of the potential of Mg-doped ZnO as a scintillator is currently hampered by the relatively poor light yield and a unavailability of large single crystals with suitable scintillation characteristics. Growing large single-crystal boules having uniform activator concentration coupled with uniform optical quality are a major setback for single crystal technology. MMI proposes to develop a process for the fabrication of polycrystalline nanostructured Mg-doped ZnO scintillators. A solution based process will be used to synthesize Mg-doped ZnO nanocrystals, which will be compacted to high density using MMI's proprietary plasma pressure compaction process. The scintillation properties vis-�-vis morphology will be analyzed and the process will be optimized for further scale-up and integration to UV detectors.

Development of polycrystalline ZnMgO scintillators will aid in the development of advanced UV detectors for missions such as Geo-CAPE, NWO, and ATALAST and other planetary science composition measurements.

ZnMgO-based scintillators will find use in UV detectors in applications such as aviation security/cargo screening, detection of dirty bombs, digital X-ray imaging (medical & industrial), early cancer detection and intelligent warfare.

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