Abstract:
Cesium Iodide (CsI) crystals have been grown to develop the radiation detectors by modified homemade Bridgman-Stockbarger technique. In this research, CsI crystals have been investigated by variation of dopants as Ca, Tl and both of Ca and Tl. CsI(Tl) crystal was grown at the growth rate of 0.65 mm/hr and 0.57 mm/hr for CsI(Ca) and CsI(Tl,Ca) crystals. The composition of dopant was constant of 0.35%wt. All CsI crystals were characterized for the crystal structure and its quality by x-ray diffraction. The CsI(Tl) and CsI(Tl,Ca) crystals have a quite similar structure of cubic with a dominant (110) plane. But CsI(Ca) crystal has two dominant planes of (110) and (211). By PL measurements to investigate the optical properties, CsI(Ca) and CsI(Tl,Ca) crystals emitted the blue light with a wavelength of 420-450 nm after excitation and the orange light emission of 590-nm wavelength from CsI(Tl) crystal. The results showed that the CsI(Tl) crystal has the highest relative efficiency of light emission and then CsI(Tl,Ca) and the last one of CsI(Ca). The results are in a good agreement with the finding from UV-VIS spectrophotometry: the lowest Eg of CsI(Tl) crystal of 2.21 eV and 2.48 eV of CsI(Ca) and the highest of 2.88 eV of CsI(Ca) crystal. The light transmittance of all crystals was analyzed: the highest one of CsI(Tl) and then CsI(Ca) and the last of CsI(Tl,Ca) crystal. Eventually the efficiency of radiation detection were performed by coupling with a photomultiplier tube (PMT), the CsI(Tl) and CsI(Tl,Ca) crystals have the best detection efficiency of 81% and 89% at 122 keV but only 60% in case of CsI(Ca) crystal. This is due to their different optical properties about the light emission efficiency. Furthermore, the radiation spectrum measured by CsI(Tl) crystal has the best energy resolution of 27.87% and 40.98% of CsI(Tl,Ca) but the highest one of 60.38%