Photoluminescence and scintillation properties of LiPO₃‒Al(PO₃)₃‒CeCl₃ glass scintillators for neutron detection

³He gas, which is the raw material of ³He proportional counter widely used in neutron detection, is nearly depleted. Therefore, scintillators containing ⁶Li have recently emerged as abundant neutron detection alternatives to those using ³He. In this study, we developed LiPO₃–Al(PO₃)₃–CeCl₃ glasses with different Ce concentrations as novel glass scintillators and investigated their photoluminescence and scintillation properties. The photoluminescence and X-ray-induced radioluminescence spectra of the fabricated samples showed emissions from Ce³⁺ ions. In addition, the photoluminescence quantum yield exceeded 80%. The ²⁵²Cf neutron-induced pulse-height spectra showed a thermal neutron-generated peak for all samples, and the highest light yield estimated from the pulse-height spectra was 1100 photons per thermal neutron. Furthermore, all samples had a short scintillation decay time of approximately 30 ns from the emission of Ce³⁺ ions. The successful measurement of the luminescence signals caused by thermal neutrons indicates that the synthesized samples can be used as neutron detectors.