Scintillators, materials that produce light pulses upon interaction with ionizing radiation, are widely employed in radiation detectors. In advanced medical-imaging technologies, fast scintillators enabling a time resolution of tens of picoseconds are required to achieve high-resolution imaging at the millimetre length scale. Here we demonstrate that composite materials based on fluorescent metal–organic framework (MOF) nanocrystals can work as fast scintillators. We present a prototype scintillator fabricated by embedding MOF nanocrystals in a polymer. The MOF comprises zirconium oxo-hydroxy clusters, high-Z linking nodes interacting with the ionizing radiation, arranged in an orderly fashion at a nanometric distance from 9,10-diphenylanthracene ligand emitters. Their incorporation in the framework enables fast sensitization of the ligand fluorescence, thus avoiding issues typically arising from the intimate mixing of complementary elements. This proof-of-concept prototype device shows an ultrafast scintillation rise time of ~50 ps, thus supporting the development of new scintillators based on engineered fluorescent MOF nanocrystals.

闪烁体是一种在与电离辐射相互作用时产生光脉冲的材料，广泛用于辐射探测器。在先进的医学成像技术中，需要能够实现数十皮秒时间分辨率的快速闪烁体来实现毫米长度尺度的高分辨率成像。在这里，我们证明了基于荧光金属有机框架 (MOF) 纳米晶体的复合材料可以用作快速闪烁体。我们提出了通过将 MOF 纳米晶体嵌入聚合物中制造的原型闪烁体。MOF 包含锆氧代羟基簇、高Z连接与电离辐射相互作用的节点，以有序的方式排列在距 9,10-二苯蒽配体发射器纳米距离处。它们在框架中的结合使配体荧光的快速敏化，从而避免了通常由互补元素的紧密混合引起的问题。这种概念验证原型设备显示出约 50 ps 的超快闪烁上升时间，从而支持基于工程荧光 MOF 纳米晶体的新型闪烁体的开发。