A General Energy-Puzzle Strategy to Fabricate Efficient Metal–Organic Framework Scintillators for X‑ray Detection

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) integrating heavy
metals
and emissive centers have shown great potential as scintillating materials.
However, the nonluminescent nature of most MOFs hinders their potential
as scintillators. Herein, we propose a general energy-puzzle strategy
to convert nonluminous MOFs into efficient scintillators for X-ray
detection. By doping a minute quantity of lanthanide (Ln) whose energy
level matches that of the linker in the original MOF, the resulting
Ln-doped MOF exhibited significantly enhanced X-ray excited luminescence
(XEL) performance, boosting an extraordinary improvement exceeding
2 orders of magnitude in terms of limit of detection (LOD). Judicious
selection of Ln-dopant with proper energy level enables broad applicability
to generally improve the XEL performance of weakly or nonemissive
MOFs, among which a rare X-ray-induced near-infrared scintillation
was realized. This work broadens the material scope of MOF-based scintillators
and facilitates the exploration of efficient MOF-based scintillators
for potential radiation detection applications.