Scintillation properties of Mn-doped methylammonium lead chloride crystals

Organic–inorganic perovskite materials with a bulk structure MAPbX₃ (MA: methylamine, X: halogen) have attracted much attention in various applications such as solar cells, photodiodes, and radiation detectors. Herein, we synthesized (CH₃NH₃)Pb_1-xMn_xCl₃ (or Mn-doped MAPbCl₃) crystals by inverse temperature crystallization method to develop scintillator materials and evaluated their photoluminescence (PL) and scintillation properties systematically. The Mn-doped MAPbCl₃ crystals showed a sharp emission peak at approximately 410–430 nm with short decay times on the order of nanoseconds and a broad peak at approximately 600 nm with a long decay time on the order of milliseconds in PL and scintillation. Furthermore, pulse height spectra of the Mn-doped MAPbCl₃ crystals with a shaping time of 1 µs were measured, and the obtained scintillation light yields were estimated to be 66 (x = 1), 82 (x = 5), and 67 (x = 10) photons/5.5 MeV-α. Moreover, afterglow levels of the Mn-doped MAPbCl₃ crystals were found to be 161 (x = 1), 264 (x = 5) and 170 (x = 10) ppm, which were comparable to a previously reported afterglow level of Tl-doped CsI.