Speaker
Description
Lead-halide perovskite nanocrystals (LHP NCs) are emerging as a promising platform for next-generation scintillators, combining high light yield with sub-nanosecond timing and access to collective quantum-optical regimes. This talk presents recent advances obtained at the University of Milano-Bicocca in both material design and assembly.By integrating CsPbBr3 nanocrystals into high-Z and mesostructured hosts, we successfully suppress defect-mediated degradation while preserving ultrafast radiative kinetics. Sensitization with heavy oxide nanoparticles, such as HfO2, enhances energy deposition and charge generation under ionizing radiation, effectively decoupling absorption from emission. Furthermore, exploiting weak quantum confinement yields giant oscillator strengths that successfully reconcile brightness and speed. At higher levels of structural ordering, nanocrystal superlattices exhibit scintillation superfluorescence, converting stochastic ionization cascades into deterministic picosecond light bursts.To tackle the ubiquitous issue of self-absorption in LHP NCs, we synthesized multilayered perovskite nanoplatelets that combine an ultrafast decay time with a large Stokes-shifted emission, demonstrating a valuable platform for LHP scintillator detectors. When integrated into photonic cavities, these systems exhibit Purcell-enhanced scintillation with accelerated timing and enhanced efficiency, marking a major step toward photonic-enhanced scintillator platforms enabled by LHP emitters. Finally, we demonstrate that plasmonic coupling between metallic nanoparticles and polyconjugated emitters sensitized by high-Z particles enables Purcell-enhanced scintillation with accelerated radiative decay.Together, these advances point toward nanoscintillators with light yields and timing resolutions approaching a few tens of picoseconds, carrying profound implications for time-of-flight imaging, high-energy physics, and precision dosimetry.