Effects of melt aging and off-stoichiometric melts on CsSrI3:Eu(2+) single crystal scintillators.

Ternary halide scintillators are commonly prepared from a mixture of commercially available binary halides. The initial binary halides may contain excess halogen ions or have different volatilities, which could lead to loss of stoichiometry of the resulting ternary halide crystals and potentially negatively affect optical and scintillation properties. In this work, the effects of vacuum aging of the melt (melt aging) and use of off-stoichiometric melts via introduction of excess CsI on the crystal quality and scintillation properties of CsSrI3:Eu(2+), a promising scintillator for gamma-ray detection applications, are investigated.