Abstract
We have recently reported the discovery of a new family of rare-earth metal-organic single-crystal scintillators based on Ce3+ as the activator ion. Starting with the CeCl3(CH3OH)4 prototype, this family of scintillators has recently been extended to include complex metal-organic adducts produced by reacting CeCl3 with heavier organics (e.g., isomers of propanol and butanol). Some of these new rare-earth metal-organic materials incorporated waters of hydration in their structures, and the observation of scintillation in these hydrated compounds was an original finding for any solid scintillator. In the present work, we now report what is apparently the initial observation of gamma-ray-excited scintillation in an inorganic hydrated material, namely single-crystal monoclinic CeCl36H2O. This observation shows that the mechanisms of the various scintillation energy-transfer processes are not “blocked” by the presence of waters of hydration in an inorganic material and that the observation of scintillation in other hydrated inorganic compounds is not precluded.
