Scintillators enable invisible X-ray to be converted into ultraviolet (UV)/visible light that can be collected using a sensor array and is the core component of the X-ray imaging system. However, combining the excellent properties of high light output, high spatial resolution, flexibility, non-toxicity, and cost effectiveness into a single X-ray scintillator remains a great challenge. Herein, a novel scintillator based on benzyltriphenylphosphonium manganese(II) bromide (BTP2MnBr4) nanocrystal (NC) membranes was developed by the in situ fabrication strategy. The long Mn-Mn distance provided by the large BTP cation allows the nonradiative energy dissipation in this manganese(II) halide to be significantly suppressed. As a result, the flexible BTP2MnBr4 NC scintillator shows an excellent linear response to the X-ray dose rate, a high light yield of ∼71,000 photon/MeV, a low detection limit of 86.2 nGyair/s at a signal-to-noise ratio of 3, a strong radiation hardness, and a long-term thermal stability. Thanks to the low Rayleigh scattering associated with the dense distribution of nanometer-scale emitters, light cross-talk in X-ray imaging is greatly suppressed. The impressively high-spatial resolution X-ray imaging (23.8 lp/mm at modulation transfer function = 0.2 and >20 lp/mm for a standard pattern chart) was achieved on this scintillator. Moreover, well-resolved 3D dynamic rendering X-ray projections were also successfully demonstrated using this scintillator. These results shed light on designing efficient, flexible, and eco-friendly scintillators for high-resolution X-ray imaging.
Keywords: X-ray imaging; flexible scintillator; in situ fabrication; manganese(II) halide; nanocrystals.