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Synthesis And Scintillation Of Single Crystal And Polycrystalline Rare-Earth-Activated Lutetium Aluminum Garnet, Paul A Cutler

Masters Theses

Single crystals with composition Lu3Al5O12 were synthesized using Czochralski and micro-pulling-down melt growth techniques. Polycrystalline ceramics of the same composition were synthesized by vacuum annealing of powders prereacted using a citrate-nitrate combustion technique and by spark-plasma-sintering of powders prereacted using a flame-spray-pyrolysis technique. Single crystals and polycrystalline ceramics are activated with Ce3+ or Pr3+ or doubly activated with Ce3+ and Tb3+ ions. Cerium-doped Czochralski-grown single crystals were compared to cerium-terbium codoped Czochralski-grown and micro-pulling down single crystals. Cerium-terbium codoped single crystals are also compared to similarly-activated polycrystalline ceramics sintered under vacuum using combustion-synthesized prereacted powders. X-ray diffraction analysis and fluorescence …