Scintillating Ceramics Based on Zinc Oxide

Optical transparent ceramics were manufactured from different ZnO powders by uniaxial hot pressing method. Structural, optical and scintillating characteristics of the ceramics have been studied. For all samples, an increase in grain size by one or two decimal order in ceramics as compared to that of the initial powder was observed. Undoped ZnO ceramics shows a high light output 28 500 ± 800 photons/MeV, decay constant ~ 1 μs, a very low afterglow, optical transparency closed to that for single crystal and a linearity of the relative light output in range 35-652 keV. Introduction of Li in ZnO decreases decay time constant of the ceramics. ZnO:Ga ceramics show an ultrafast decay, 0.7 ns, not high light output: ~ 1000 photons/MeV, and a low optical transparency.