Large-area in situ growth of a flexible perovskite scintillator film for X-ray indirect detection applications

Deep sea mineral analysis with X-rays requires ultra water-stable and large-scale X-ray sensitive materials. Perovskite nanocrystals are promising for X-ray detection. However, their surface defects usually affect luminescence properties and long-time stability. Herein, a strategy combining polymer encapsulation and vitamin doping is proposed in this work. The perovskite nanocrystals are in situ grown in the polymer matrix, which can maintain over 96% of the initial luminous intensity in water and ambient conditions for 480 and 2880 hours, respectively. Moreover, the perovskite film exhibits excellent stability in high pressure/salted/sulfur-rich environments. In addition, vitamins are introduced into the perovskite precursor, which promote the crystallization of the perovskite film, reducing the grain boundaries and adequately passivating the surface defects. The photoluminescence and radioluminescence intensity of the perovskite film are improved nearly 2-fold. By the in situ spraying growth method, the perovskite film is obtained over 100 cm² with high uniformity (root-mean-square roughness of 1.06 nm). The perovskite scintillator film exhibits a light yield of 9001 photons per MeV and high spatial resolution of 9.0 lp mm⁻¹. This work is expected to promote deep-sea mineral detection by X-rays.