RESUMO
The benefits of doping Cs4EuBr6 and Cs4EuI6 with Sm2+ are studied for near-infrared scintillator applications. It is shown that undoped Cs4EuI6 suffers from a high probability of self-absorption, which is almost completely absent in Cs4EuI6:2% Sm. Sm2+ doping is also used to gain insight in the migration rate of Eu2+ excitations in Cs4EuBr6 and Cs4EuI6, which shows that concentration quenching is weak, but still significant in the undoped compounds. Both self-absorption and concentration quenching are linked to the spectral overlap of the Eu2+ excitation and emission spectra which were studied between 10 K and 300 K. The scintillation characteristics of Cs4EuI6:2% Sm is compared to that of the undoped samples. An improvement of energy resolution from 11% to 7.5% is found upon doping Cs4EuI6 with 2% Sm and the scintillation decay time shortens from 4.8 s to 3.5 s in samples of around 3 mm in size.
RESUMO
We have designed and modeled a novel optical system composed of a Laue lens coupled to an x-ray tube that produces a focused beam in an energy range near 100 keV (λ= 12.4 picometer). One application of this system is radiation therapy where it could enable treatment units that are considerably simpler and lower in cost than present technologies relying on linear accelerators. The Laue lens is made of Silicon Laue components which exploit the silicon pore optics technology. The lens concentrates photons to a small region thus allowing high dose rates at the focal area with very much lower dose rates at the skin and superficial regions. Monte Carlo simulations with Geant4 indicate a dose deposition rate of 0.2 Gy min-1in a cylindrical volume of 0.7 mm diameter and 10 mm length, and a dose ratio of 72 at the surface (skin) compared to the focus placed 10 cm within a water phantom. Work is ongoing to newer generation crystal technologies to increase dose rate.
