Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Perego, J.
• Villa, I.
• Pedrini, A.
• Padovani, E. C.
• Crapanzano, R.
• Vedda, A.
• Dujardin, C.
• Bezuidenhout, Charl X.
• Bracco, S.
• Sozzani, P. E.
• Comotti, A.
• Gironi, L.
• Beretta, M.
• Salomoni, M.
• Kratochwil, N.
• Gundacker, S.
• Auffray, E.
• Meinardi, F.
• Monguzzi, A.

Titel

Composite fast scintillators based on high-Z fluorescent metal–organic framework nanocrystals

Ist Teil von

• Nature photonics, 2021-05, Vol.15 (5), p.393-400

Ort / Verlag

London: Nature Publishing Group

Erscheinungsjahr

2021

Quelle

Springer Nature - Connect here FIRST to enable access

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Scintillators, materials that produce light pulses upon interaction with ionizing radiation, are widely employed in radiation detectors. In advanced medical-imaging technologies, fast scintillators enabling a time resolution of tens of picoseconds are required to achieve high-resolution imaging at the millimetre length scale. Here we demonstrate that composite materials based on fluorescent metal–organic framework (MOF) nanocrystals can work as fast scintillators. We present a prototype scintillator fabricated by embedding MOF nanocrystals in a polymer. The MOF comprises zirconium oxo-hydroxy clusters, high-Z linking nodes interacting with the ionizing radiation, arranged in an orderly fashion at a nanometric distance from 9,10-diphenylanthracene ligand emitters. Their incorporation in the framework enables fast sensitization of the ligand fluorescence, thus avoiding issues typically arising from the intimate mixing of complementary elements. This proof-of-concept prototype device shows an ultrafast scintillation rise time of ~50 ps, thus supporting the development of new scintillators based on engineered fluorescent MOF nanocrystals.Composites of fluorescent metal–organic framework nanocrystals in a polymer are exploited to create fast scintillators with a rise time of about 50 ps.