Research Initiation Award: Development of New Halide-based Rare-Earth Scintillators

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Research Initiation Awards provide support for junior and mid-career faculty at Historically Black Colleges and Universities who are building new research programs or redirecting and rebuilding existing research programs. It is expected that the award helps to further the faculty member's research capability and effectiveness, improves research and teaching at her home institution, and involves undergraduate students in research experiences. The award to Hampton University has potential impact in the areas of high energy physics, homeland security, and nuclear medicine through the development of new halide-based rare-earth detectors. The results of this project will add new knowledge on the optical, structural, electronic, and scintillation properties of the proposed materials, impacting the development of efficient radiation sensors. Every year, two undergraduate students will be directly involved in the research. Outreach activities are planned to local K-12 schools and community colleges.Scintillators have attracted enormous interest over the last decade for a wide range of applications such as homeland security, monitoring nuclear materials, X-ray imaging screens, high-energy particle physics experiments, industrial inspections, and gas exploration. Scintillators are materials that are capable of converting high energy radiation such as X-rays or gamma rays to visible light. The objective of this research is to develop new halide-based rare-earth scintillator materials. Divalent europium (Eu2+) doped lead halide based binary compounds such as PbCl2, PbBr2, PbI2 will be used as scintillation crystals. The work will also involve the comparison of high performing halide scintillators including Eu2+:SrI2 and Eu2+:BaI2 for better understanding the optical properties and the scintillation mechanisms. Spectroscopic characterization and the structural and electronic properties of Eu2+ doped lead halides will be evaluated as potential scintillator materials.