Multipurpose Luminescence Materials with Compositionally Disordered Garnet Structure for the New Generation of Detecting Equipment and Energy Production

Abstract

Disordered crystalline systems, which exhibit a wide range of optical properties when formed under conditions similar to natural, have become an object of intensive recent research aimed at creating new-generation materials for photonics. A promising direction in this field is the development of compounds of cubic garnet structure type, which is formed basically from two- and four-charged cations in nature. The principles of creating multifunctional crystalline materials with a garnet structure and possibilities of targeted control of their properties through compositional disorder in the cationic subsystem of the crystal are considered. A comparative analysis of the material obtained at the National Research Centre “Kurchatov Institute” (NRC KI) and commercial scintillation materials for PET scanners is performed. New areas of possible application for energy production using isotope sources are demonstrated.