Perovskite Nanocrystals and Dyes for High-Efficiency Liquid Scintillator Counters To Detect Radiation

Abstract

Liquid scintillators have important applications in the field of nuclear radiation detection due to their excellent damage resistance, fast decay time, low cost, and exceptional scalability. However, a relatively low atomic number and moderate light yield of traditional liquid scintillators hinder their wider application. Here, liquid scintillators that load CsPbBr3 perovskite nanocrystals and organic dyes are proposed for highly enhanced radio- and photoluminescence efficiencies. It is found that an optimized light yield of 16,740 ph/MeV can be achieved by using CsPbBr3 perovskite nanocrystals and p-terphenyl dyes in a toluene solvent, which is superior to the commercial liquid scintillator EJ-301. The high-Z perovskite nanocrystals are demonstrated to be capable of increasing the absorption of high-energy photons. Analyses based on experiments and theoretical simulations suggest that Förster resonance energy transfer from the dyes to the perovskite nanocrystals significantly contributes to the enhanced quantum efficiency of radioluminescence and thus improved light yield. Overall, this approach has the potential to design high-efficiency liquid scintillators for wide-range radiation detection applications.