Scintillation and Optical Properties of Ag-Doped ZnS Nanoparticles

چکیده مقاله

Ag-doped ZnS nanoparticles were synthesized using hydrothermal method in water solutions. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) characterizations were used to determine the structure and morphology of undopped and Ag-dopped ZnS nanoparticles. The produced nanoparticles have approximately hexagonal structure with average size around 10~20 nm and have a cubic zinc blended structure. The optical properties of these nanoparticles were investigated using photoluminescence (PL) spectra, which show that the samples exhibited reasonable optical properties with a maximum emission peak at wavelength of 418nm. The response of the samples under alpha particles indicates that the Ag-doped ZnS has reasonable scintillation property to be used as a detector for alpha detection. These nanocomposite materials are expected to have improved properties with respect to the one of the bulk scintillators. Improvements include enhanced light output, cost reduction and possibility of embedding them in free-size structure.