Bismuth Vacancy-Induced Enhancement of Luminescence Intensity and Irradiation Resistance for Bi4Ge3O12

Mingxue Deng; Yangmin Tang; Junfeng Chen; Yanfeng Tang; Jin Wang; Tongming Sun; Minmin Wang; Jinli Zhu; Zhenzhen Zhou; Jiacheng Wang

doi:10.1021/acs.jpclett.3c00657

Bismuth Vacancy-Induced Enhancement of Luminescence Intensity and Irradiation Resistance for Bi₄Ge₃O₁₂

J Phys Chem Lett. 2023 Apr 27;14(16):3818-3825. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.3c00657. Epub 2023 Apr 14.

Authors

Mingxue Deng¹, Yangmin Tang¹, Junfeng Chen², Yanfeng Tang³, Jin Wang³, Tongming Sun³, Minmin Wang³, Jinli Zhu³, Zhenzhen Zhou¹, Jiacheng Wang^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201899, China.
² Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201899, China.
³ College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nantong University, Nantong 226019, China.
⁴ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Taizhou University, Taizhou 318000, China.

PMID: 37058299
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.3c00657

Abstract

Bi₄Ge₃O₁₂ (BGO) is a traditional scintillator, widely used in high-energy physics and nuclear medicine. However, it not only suffers from low scintillation intensity but also tends to be damaged by high-energy rays. Herein, we prepare pure-phase BGO materials enriched with Bi vacancies by rationally reduced Bi content, showing significantly enhanced luminescence intensity and irradiation resistance ability. The optimized Bi_3.6Ge₃O₁₂ shows 178% of luminescence intensity compared to BGO. After 50 h of ultraviolet irradiation, Bi_3.6Ge₃O₁₂ possesses ∼80% of original luminescence intensity, much superior to the 60% for BGO. The existence of the Bi vacancy is identified by advanced experimental and theoretical studies. The mechanism studies show the Bi vacancies could cause the symmetry destruction of the local field around the Bi³⁺ ion. It enhances scintillation luminescence by increasing the probability of radiative transition while resisting nonradiative relaxation caused by irradiation damage. This study initiates vacancy-induced performance enhancement for inorganic scintillators.