近日，华中科技大学的唐江&牛广达及其研究团队取得一项新进展。经过不懈努力，他们利用热激子操纵研制出高效超快有机闪烁体。相关研究成果已于2024年1月11日在国际知名学术期刊《自然—光子学》上发表。

据悉，高效、快速的闪烁体在医疗诊断、科学仪器和高能物理等领域有着广泛的应用需求。然而，如何在高闪烁效率和快速定时特性之间取得平衡，是几乎所有闪烁体都面临的一项挑战。

为了解决这一限制，该研究团队研发了一种有机闪烁体的策略。通过将所有热激子引导至快速单线态，而不涉及最低的三重态，该策略得以实现。研究中的闪烁体1,1,2,2-四(4-溴苯基)乙烯展现了超快的辐射寿命，为1.79纳秒，同时具有约34600光子/MeV的光产率，实现了高光产率和短衰变时间的完美结合。这项研究工作为设计高效、超快的闪烁体提供了新思路，并为超快探测和成像的潜在应用铺平了道路。

附：英文原文

Title: Efficient and ultrafast organic scintillators by hot exciton manipulation

Author: Du, Xinyuan, Zhao, Shan, Wang, Lu, Wu, Haodi, Ye, Fan, Xue, Kan-Hao, Peng, Shaoqian, Xia, Jianlong, Sang, Ziru, Zhang, Dongdong, Xiong, Zuping, Zheng, Zhiping, Xu, Ling, Niu, Guangda, Tang, Jiang

Issue&Volume: 2024-01-11

Abstract: Efficient and fast scintillators are in high demand in a variety of fields, such as medical diagnostics, scientific instruments and high-energy physics. However, the trade-off between high scintillation efficiency and fast timing properties is a common challenge facing almost all scintillators. To overcome this limitation, we have developed a strategy for organic scintillators by directing all hot excitons into fast singlet emission states without involving the lowest triplet states. Our scintillator, 1,1,2,2-tetrakis(4-bromophenyl)ethylene, shows an ultrafast radiative lifetime of 1.79ns and a light yield of ～34,600photonsperMeV, exhibiting an excellent combination of high light yield and short decay time. Our work provides a method to design efficient and ultrafast scintillators, and paves the way towards exciting applications for ultrafast detection and imaging.

DOI: 10.1038/s41566-023-01358-y

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-023-01358-y