Fabrication of Doped Yttrium Aluminum Polycrystalline Ceramics for Neutron Detection

Yttrium aluminum garnet (YAG) is a transparent ceramic with various applications, including solid-state lasers, infrared transparent windows, armors, and scintillation crystals. Recently, uranium (U) doped YAG has gained interest as a scintillation material for neutron detection. The principle of neutron detection using U:YAG is that under neutron bombardment, the U atoms within the YAG will fission, providing excitation energy to surrounding U atoms in order to emit photons. As this material is rarely reported, an investigation into the fabrication procedure of this material is conducted. Powder fabrication methods are investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The sintering of the fabricated powders is then investigated by various experimental techniques. Characterization of the sintered samples included optical microscopy, Archimedes density measurements, and XRD.