LAUSR

Abstract We examined the optical and luminescence properties of BaO-TiO2-SiO2 (BTS) glasses and BTS glass-ceramics (GCs). The 40BaO-20TiO2-40SiO2 (BTS40) GC obtained by heat treatment at glass transition temperature (Tg) + 50 °C exhibited bulk crystallization, whereas surface crystallization was obtained for the 33.3BaO-16.7TiO2-50SiO2 (BTS50) and 30BaO-15TiO2-55SiO2 (BTS55) GCs by the same heat treatment. The photoluminescence (PL) excitation spectra changed depending on the chemical composition. After crystallization, the peaks of the PL and the scintillation spectra were blue-shifted, indicating the local coordination change of the Ti species. A large enhancement of X-ray induced scintillation was observed in the BTS40 system, though the precursor BTS40 glass exhibited lower scintillation intensity despite its higher effective atomic number (Zeff). Since the volume fraction of Ba2TiSi2O8 crystallites in the BTS40 GC is higher than the other GCs, the enhancement in scintillation intensity reflects an increase in number density of emission centers in Ba2TiSi2O8 crystallites after crystallization.