Composite fast scintillators based on high-Z fluorescent metal–organic framework nanocrystals

Scintillators, materials that produce light pulses upon interaction with ionizing radiation, are widely employed in radiation detectors. In advanced medical-imaging technologies, fast scintillators enabling a time resolution of tens of picoseconds are required to achieve high-resolution imaging at t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature photonics 2021-05, Vol.15 (5), p.393-400
Main Authors: Perego, J., Villa, I., Pedrini, A., Padovani, E. C., Crapanzano, R., Vedda, A., Dujardin, C., Bezuidenhout, Charl X., Bracco, S., Sozzani, P. E., Comotti, A., Gironi, L., Beretta, M., Salomoni, M., Kratochwil, N., Gundacker, S., Auffray, E., Meinardi, F., Monguzzi, A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Chemical Sciences
Composite materials
Crystals
Embedding
Emitters
Engineering Sciences
Fluorescence
Image resolution
Ionizing radiation
Ligands
Metal-organic frameworks
Nanocrystals
Physics
Polymers
Prototypes
Radiation detectors
Scintillation counters
Zirconium
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Summary:Scintillators, materials that produce light pulses upon interaction with ionizing radiation, are widely employed in radiation detectors. In advanced medical-imaging technologies, fast scintillators enabling a time resolution of tens of picoseconds are required to achieve high-resolution imaging at the millimetre length scale. Here we demonstrate that composite materials based on fluorescent metal–organic framework (MOF) nanocrystals can work as fast scintillators. We present a prototype scintillator fabricated by embedding MOF nanocrystals in a polymer. The MOF comprises zirconium oxo-hydroxy clusters, high-Z linking nodes interacting with the ionizing radiation, arranged in an orderly fashion at a nanometric distance from 9,10-diphenylanthracene ligand emitters. Their incorporation in the framework enables fast sensitization of the ligand fluorescence, thus avoiding issues typically arising from the intimate mixing of complementary elements. This proof-of-concept prototype device shows an ultrafast scintillation rise time of ~50 ps, thus supporting the development of new scintillators based on engineered fluorescent MOF nanocrystals.Composites of fluorescent metal–organic framework nanocrystals in a polymer are exploited to create fast scintillators with a rise time of about 50 ps.
ISSN:1749-4885
1749-4893
DOI:10.1038/s41566-021-00769-z