Keywords

Scintillators, transparent ceramics

Abstract

As our understanding of ceramic processing methods for the purpose of fabricating polycrystalline optical materials has increased over the past few decades, the race is on to bring ceramic technology to markets where single crystalline materials have traditionally been used. One such market is scintillators. This Master’s thesis focuses specifically on a class of materials attractive for use as gamma-ray scintillators. These barium based halides can potentially be utilized in applications ranging from ionizing radiation detection in the field to high-energy physics experimentation. Barium bromide iodide and barium chloride single crystals have already showed high light yield, fast scintillation decay, and high energy resolution, all desirable properties for a scintillator. This work attempts to show the likelihood of moving towards polycrystalline scintillators to take advantage of the lower processing temperature, higher manufacturing output, and overall reduced cost. The experiments begin with identifying appropriate sintering conditions for hot pressed ceramics of BaBrI and BaCl2. Possible sources of optical loss in the first phase of hot pressed samples are investigated using a wide range of characterization tools. Preliminary luminescence and scintillation measurements are reported for a translucent sample of BaBrI. Recommendations are made to move toward highly transparent ceramics with scintillation properties approaching those measured in single crystal samples

Notes

If this is your thesis or dissertation, and want to learn how to access it or for more information about readership statistics, contact us at STARS@ucf.edu

Graduation Date

2013

Semester

Summer

Advisor

Gaume, Romain

Degree

Master of Science in Materials Science and Engineering (M.S.M.S.E.)

College

College of Engineering and Computer Science

Department

Materials Science Engineering

Degree Program

Materials Science and Engineering

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0005258

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0005258

Language

English

Release Date

February 2014

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Open Access)

Subjects

Dissertations, Academic -- Engineering and Computer Science, Engineering and Computer Science -- Dissertations, Academic

Download

Share

COinS