Characterization of Nd: LaVO4 single-crystal scintillator emitting near-infrared photons

Nd: LaVO4 single crystals were prepared and were evaluated for their photoluminescence (PL) and radioluminescence properties. The 0.1% Nd-doped LaVO4 single crystals showed the highest PL quantum yield (36.3%) of all the samples. Regarding the scintillation properties, the Nd-doped samples showed scintillation peaks at around 900, 1060, and 1320 nm owing to the electronic transition of Nd3+. In addition, we estimated the correlation between the scintillation signal intensity and the exposure dose rate of the X-ray in the spectral range from 900 nm through 1600 nm. Among all the samples, the 3.0% Nd-doped sample had the highest sensitivity.