Novel Ce3+-activated gadolinium-based glass prepared in vacuum: structure and scintillation

• • GGBS 1 glass achieves a photoluminescence quantum yield of 78.4% and a transmittance of ~80% in the visible range, enabling efficient light collection for imaging and spectroscopy. • • Under X-ray excitation, GGBS 1 exhibits a peak luminescence intensity 128.5% that of BGO crystal and a spatial resolution of 29.1 lp/mm, approaching the highest reported for glass scintillators, making it suitable for high-resolution X-ray imaging. • • Under γ-ray excitation, GGBS 1 delivers a light yield of 1058 photons/MeV with an energy resolution of 23.7% at 662 keV, demonstrating competitive performance for γ-ray spectroscopy. • • The glass scintillator shows fast scintillation decay (fast component: 96.8–102.8 ns; slow component: 351.5–402.2 ns) and rise times decreasing from 90.6 to 84.4 ns with increasing Gd2O3 content, enabling rapid event timing in high-energy physics.