Synthesis and crystal growth of the europium doped BaF<inf>2</inf> - BaCl<inf>2</inf> system

Mixed halide systems have attractive optical properties that make these materials applicable to radiation detection, imaging, optical data storage and fundamental science. This study investigates the synthesis of BaFCl:Eu2+ using flux growth and radio-frequency heated vertical Bridgman growth. Flux growth produced crystals up to 0.5 × 0.5 × 0.5 mm3 in size while vertical Bridgman growth yielded single crystals up to 1 × 2 × 4 mm3 in size. The luminescence, scintillation, and X-ray diffraction properties of the resulting BaFCl:Eu2+ samples are reported. A lower bound of the light yield was measured to be approximately 883 photons/MeV. The successful control of the mixed halide compositional space enables the rapid development of barium-based scintillating single crystals.