Development of Optical-Guiding Scintillators with Ultrafine (~12 μm) Uniform Scintillator Cores for High-Resolution X-Ray Imaging

We report the development of bundled optical-guiding crystal scintillators (OCSs) with ultrafine and uniform scintillator cores (~12 μm) for high-resolution X-ray imaging. Conventional OCS fabrication using iodide scintillators often suffers from iodine volatilization, bubble formation, and core discontinuities, which limit structural uniformity and device reliability. To address these limitations, a hollow-fiber-based fabrication strategy was introduced. Hollow glass fibers were first bundled and drawn without scintillator materials, followed by capillary infiltration of a Tl-doped Cs3Cu2I5 (Tl: CCI) melt. This approach enabled the stable formation of densely packed bundled OCS structures with uniform core diameters of 10–12 μm while suppressing volatilization-induced defects. Radioluminescence measurements confirmed a broad emission peak at ~442 nm, consistent with Tl:CCI scintillation. X-ray imaging experiments demonstrated superior spatial resolution and image contrast compared with a commercial CsI:Tl columnar scintillator. The bundled OCS exhibited an average contrast transfer function (CTF) of 30.7% at ~10 lp/mm, exceeding the reference value. These results demonstrate that the hollow-fiber architecture provides an effective route toward scalable ultrafine-core scintillators and highlight the potential of Tl:CCI-filled OCSs for next-generation high-resolution X-ray imaging.