High-resolution flexible X-ray luminescence imaging enabled by eco-friendly CuI scintillators

Zhongzhu Hong; Peifu Luo; Tingting Wu; Qinxia Wu; Xiaoling Chen; Zhijian Yang; Shuheng Dai; Hao Jiang; Qihao Chen; Qiang Sun; Lili Xie

doi:10.3389/fchem.2022.1052574

High-resolution flexible X-ray luminescence imaging enabled by eco-friendly CuI scintillators

Front Chem. 2022 Oct 31:10:1052574. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2022.1052574. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ MOE Key Laboratory for Analytical Science of Food Safety and Biology, College of Chemistry, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, China.
² Center for Functional Materials, National University of Singapore Suzhou Research Institute, Suzhou, China.
³ School of Public Health, Fujian Medical University, Fuzhou, China.

Abstract

Solution-processed scintillators hold great promise in fabrication of low-cost X-ray detectors. However, state of the art of these scintillators is still challenging in their environmental toxicity and instability. In this study, we develop a class of tetradecagonal CuI microcrystals as highly stable, eco-friendly, and low-cost scintillators that exhibit intense radioluminescence under X-ray irradiation. The red broadband emission is attributed to the recombination of self-trapped excitons in CuI microcrystals. We demonstrate the incorporation of such CuI microscintillator into a flexible polymer to fabricate an X-ray detector for high-resolution imaging with a spatial resolution up to 20 line pairs per millimeter (lp mm^-1), which enables sharp image effects by attaching the flexible imaging detectors onto curved object surfaces.

Keywords: CuI; X-ray imaging; microscintillator; radioluminescence; self-trapped exciton.