Constructing Organic Phosphorescent Scintillators with Enhanced Triplet Exciton Utilization Through Multi-Mode Radioluminescence for Efficient X-Ray Imaging.

ABSTRACT

The development of organic phosphorescent scintillators with high exciton utilization efficiency has attracted significant attention but remains a difficult challenge because of the inherent spin-forbidden feature of X-ray-induced triplet excitons. Herein, a design strategy is proposed to develop organic phosphorescent scintillators through thermally activated exciton release to convert stabilized spin-forbidden triplet excitons to spin-allowed singlet excitons, which enables singlet exciton-dominated multi-mode emission simultaneously from the lowest singlet, triplet, and stabilized triplet states. The resultant scintillators demonstrate a maximum photoluminescence efficiency of 65.8% and a minimum X-ray radiation detection limit of 110 nGy s-1; this allows efficient radiography imaging with a spatial resolution of ≈10.0 lp mm-1. This study advances the fundamental understanding of exciton dynamics under X-ray excitation, significantly broadening the practical use of phosphorescent materials for safety-critical industries and medical diagnostics.