Significant enhancement of scintillation performance by inducing oxygen vacancies in alkali metal ion (A + = Li + , Na + , K + )-incorporated (Lu, Sc)BO 3 :Ce.

The incorporation of Sc 3+ can stabilize calcite-phase LuBO 3 :Ce 3+ to grow large-sized single crystals but leads to the significant degradation of scintillation performance. In the present work, alkali metal ion (A + = Li + , Na + , K + )-incorporated (Lu, A, Sc)BO 3 :Ce was rapidly synthesized in batches via a high-throughput sol-gel method. The aliovalent substitution of Lu 3+ with A + is balanced by the generation of oxygen vacancies by forming complexes. Thanks to the increased oxygen vacancies, the luminescence and XEL intensity of (Lu, Li, Sc)BO 3 :Ce are significantly enhanced by 2.2 times and 1.9 times, respectively. Further, the incorporation of A + is attributed to the improved transition efficiency of charge carriers. The prepared scintillation screen fabricated with LASBO:Ce and PMMA shows that the spatial resolution can reach 8.6 lp mm -1 , indicating its potential application in efficient and low-cost non-destructive X-ray detection. This work is of great significance in improving the luminescence and scintillation performance of (Lu, Sc)BO 3 :Ce single crystals and thin films and their application in the scintillation field.