Bright and fast scintillations of an inorganic halide perovskite CsPbBr3 crystal at cryogenic temperatures

Highly efficient scintillation crystals with short decay times are indispensable for improving the performance of numerous detection and imaging instruments that use- X-rays, gamma-quanta, ionising particles or neutrons. Halide perovskites emerged recently as very promising materials for detection of ionising radiation that motivated further exploration of the materials. In this work, we report on excellent scintillation properties of CsPbBr3 crystals when cooled to cryogenic temperatures. The temperature dependence of luminescence spectra, decay kinetics and light yield under excitation with X-rays and α-particles was investigated. It is shown that the observed changes of spectral and kinetic characteristics of the crystal with temperature can be consistently explained by radiative decay of free excitons, bound and trapped excitons as well as electron-hole pairs originating from their disintegration. It has been found that the crystal exhibits a fast decay time constant of 1 ns at 7 K. The scintillation light yield of CsPbBr3 at 7 K is assessed to be 50,000 ± 10,000 ph/MeV at excitation with 12 keV X-rays and 109,000 ± 22,000 ph/MeV at excitation with α-particles of 241Am. This finding places CsPbBr3 in an excellent position for the development of a new generation of cryogenic, efficient scintillation detectors with nanosecond response time, marking a step-change in opportunities for scintillator-based applications

An open resource for non-human primate imaging

Non-human primate neuroimaging is a rapidly growing area of research that promises to transform and scale translational and cross-species comparative neuroscience. Unfortunately, the technological and methodological advances of the past two decades have outpaced the accrual of data, which is particularly challenging given the relatively few centers that have the necessary facilities and capabilities. The PRIMatE Data Exchange (PRIME-DE) addresses this challenge by aggregating independently acquired non-human primate magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) datasets and openly sharing them via the International Neuroimaging Data-sharing Initiative (INDI). Here, we present the rationale, design, and procedures for the PRIME-DE consortium, as well as the initial release, consisting of 25 independent data collections aggregated across 22 sites (total = 217 non-human primates). We also outline the unique pitfalls and challenges that should be considered in the analysis of non-human primate MRI datasets, including providing automated quality assessment of the contributed datasets