Synthesis and luminescence properties of Tb doped LaBGeO and GdBGeO glass scintillators.

Borogermanate glasses show promise as scintillators due to their ability to incorporate high levels of heavy metal oxides without excessive loss of luminescent output intensity. Heavy metal oxide scintillating glasses of 50GeO-25BO-(25-x)LaO/GdO-xTbO (x=1,2,3,4) with the same stoichiometric composition of crystalline Tb doped LaBGeO/GdBGeO were synthesized via the melt-quench method. Three times of higher light output under gamma ray excitation was observed from Tb doped GdBGeO based glass compared to LaBGeO glass due to efficient energy transfer between Gd-Tb pairs and higher luminescence efficiency in the GdBGeO glasses. The potential to form LaBGeO/GdBGeO glass ceramic scintillators was also discussed and preliminarily investigated.