Ceramic scintillator, and radiation detector and radiographic examination apparatus using same
AssigneesKabushiki Kaisha Toshiba, Toshiba Materials Co., Ltd.
InventorsYukihiro Fukuta, Hiroyasu Oota, Masaaki Tamatani
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Abstract
A ceramic scintillator comprises a sintered body of a lutetium oxysulfide phosphor containing at least one element selected from Pr, Tb and Eu as an activator. The sintered body of a lutetium oxysulfide phosphor contains 5 to 15 ppm of an alkali metal element and 5 to 40 ppm of phosphorus. Such a ceramic scintillator can sufficiently make use of the intrinsic characteristics of the lutetium oxysulfide phosphor and has good sensitivity in X-ray detection even when it is downsized.
Claims9
A ceramic scintillator provided with a sintered body of a lutetium oxysulfide phosphor containing as an activator at least one element selected from Pr, Tb and Eu, and having a composition substantially expressed by
- General formula:
- (Lu1−aMa)2O2S
- where M denotes at least one element selected from Pr, Tb and Eu, and a is a number satisfying 0.0001≦a≦0.2,
- wherein the sintered body of the lutetium oxysulfide phosphor contains an alkali metal element in a range of 5 ppm or more and 15 ppm or less and phosphorus in a range of 5 ppm or more and 40 ppm or less, and has a relative density of 99.5% or more.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.