High-resolution X-ray imaging via spatially decoupled heavy-atom antennas in organic scintillators
Abstract
Abstract Organic scintillators are promising for X-ray imaging due to low cost, sustainability, and tunable structures, but their commercial use is limited by poor understanding of charge transfer design for balancing light yield, decay, and bandwidth. Here, we propose a spatially decoupled heavy atom antenna strategy, integrating alkyl bromides into a hybridized local and charge-transfer scaffold to create a scintillator. This architecture leverages the moderate charge-transfer state to deliver an optimal combination of a short radiative lifetime (3.74 ns), a narrow radioluminescence bandwidth (56 nm), a large Stokes shift (110 nm) and a high photoluminescence quantum yield of 100%. As a result, this scintillator exhibits excellent radioluminescence properties, rendering it suitable for highly sensitive X-ray detections. In this work, we elucidate a general design principle for creating high-performance scintillators that meet the stringent multi-property demands of advanced X-ray imaging applications.
Article Details
Authors (17)
Chensen Li
Department of Chemistry, The Hong Kong Branch of Chinese National Engineering Research Center for Tissue Restoration and Reconstruction, Division of Life Science, State Key Laboratory of Molecular Neuroscience, and Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong 999077, China
Yaohui Li
Minghui Wu
Joint International Research Laboratory of Animal Health and Food Safety of Ministry of Education and Single Molecule Nanobiology Laboratory (Sinmolab)
Fan-cheng Kong
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong 99077 China
Binxia Jia
Zonghang Liu
Guangdong Basic Research Center of Excellence for Aggregate Science, School of Science and Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen), Longgang, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518172, China
Xilong Wei
Philip C. Y. Chow
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong 99077 China
Zhicheng Wang
Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Materials Genome Engineering Key Laboratory for Renewable Energy, Beijing Key Laboratory for New Energy Materials and Devices, Institute of Physics
Xiaoming Li
Bo Xu
Zheng Zhao
Ryan T. K. Kwok
Department of Chemistry, the Hong Kong Branch of Chinese National Engineering Research Center for Tissue Restoration and Reconstruction, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Nervous System Disorders, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR 999077, China
Jacky W. Y. Lam
Department of Chemistry, the Hong Kong Branch of Chinese National Engineering Research Center for Tissue Restoration and Reconstruction, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Nervous System Disorders, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR 999077, China
Yucheng Liu
Shengzhong Frank Liu
Ben Zhong Tang
School of Science and Engineering, Guangdong Basic Research Center of Excellence for Aggregate Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen), Longgang, Shenzhen 518172, Guangdong, P. R. China