Crystal growth and scintillation properties of Nd doped CaF2 single crystal

Nd3+ doped CaF2 single crystal scintillator has been investigated. We tried to grow 1, 5, 10, 20, 30 and 40% Nd doped CaF2 single crystals by the simple melt-solidifying method. Those sampeles are compared in terms of their X-ray excited radio luminescence spectra, transmittance, α-ray radiated decay time and light yield. When they are irradiated by X-ray the luminescence appears at VUV region. Transmittances of them are more than 70% at wavelengths longer than about 180 nm. In decay time kinetics, the fast components of Nd doped CaF2 are distributed in 8-40 nsec and became shorter with increasing of concentration of Nd. they are related to the Nd3+ 5d-4f VUV emission. The light yield of Nd doped CaF2 are distributed in 5-2500 photon/5.5MeV α and decrease with the increasing of the amount of Nd concentrations.