Following the discovery of X-rays, scintillators are commonly used as high-energy radiation sensors in diagnostic medical imaging, high-energy physics, astrophysics, environmental radiation monitoring, and security inspections. Conventional scintillators face intrinsic limitations including a low extraction efficiency of scintillated light and a low emission rate, leading to efficiencies that are less than 10 % for commercial scintillators. Overcoming these limitations will require new materials including scintillating nanomaterials (“nanoscintillators”), as well as new photonic approaches that increase the efficiency of the scintillation process, increase the emission rate of materials, and control the directivity of the scintillated light. In this perspective, we describe emerging nanoscintillating materials and three nanophotonic platforms: (i) plasmonic nanoresonators, (ii) photonic crystals, and (iii) high-Q metasurfaces that could enable high performance scintillators. We further discuss how a combination of nanoscintillators and photonic structures can yield a “super scintillator” enabling ultimate spatio-temporal resolution while enabling a significant boost in the extracted scintillation emission.

中文翻译：

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利用纳米材料和纳米光子学实现“超级闪烁”

随着X射线的发现，闪烁体被广泛用作诊断医学成像、高能物理、天体物理、环境辐射监测和安全检查中的高能辐射传感器。传统闪烁体面临固有的局限性，包括闪烁光提取效率低和发射率低，导致商用闪烁体的效率低于 10%。克服这些限制将需要新材料，包括闪烁纳米材料（“纳米闪烁体”），以及新的光子方法，以提高闪烁过程的效率，提高材料的发射率，并控制闪烁光的方向性。从这个角度来看，我们描述了新兴的纳米闪烁材料和三个纳米光子平台：（i）等离子体纳米谐振器，（ii）光子晶体，以及（iii）可以实现高性能闪烁器的高Q超表面。我们进一步讨论了纳米闪烁体和光子结构的组合如何产生“超级闪烁体”，从而实现最终的时空分辨率，同时显着提高提取的闪烁发射。