M. D. Birowosuto, P. Dorenbos, C. W. E. van Eijk, K. W. Krämer and H. U. Güdel
PrBr₃: Ce³⁺: A New Fast Lanthanide Trihalide Scintillator
IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci. 53, 3028-3030 (2006)                 

Abstract: We present PrBr₃: Ce³⁺ as a new member of the lanthanide trihalide scintillator family. This compound has the same crystal structure as its cousin LaBr₃: Ce³⁺. The calculated density r_r (5.33 g/cm³) and the effective atomic number Z_eff (48.27) are higher than those of LaBr₃: Ce³⁺ (r_r = 5.07 g/cm³ and Z_eff = 46.90). This results in a shorter total attenuation length of 2.09 cm for 511 keV g-ray excitation. Lower light yield than that of LaBr₃: Ce³⁺ is observed for PrBr₃: 5% Ce³⁺ (16000 photons/MeV) and 20% Ce³⁺ (21000 photons/MeV) versus 70000 photons/MeV in LaBr₃: Ce³⁺. Scintillation decay curves of those crystals are non exponential and their decay times are faster than 10 ns. The scintillation properties of undoped PrBr₃ are also presented.