Abstract
The increasing demand for high-speed X-ray imaging requires scintillators with high light yield and fast response. Perovskite nanocrystals are promising candidates due to their distinctive optical properties and solution processability. However, the fabrication of thick X-ray films, which are several orders of magnitude thicker than conventional optoelectronic devices, leads to severe material waste and reduced light yield caused by strong spectral overlap and self-absorption. In addition, conventional synthesis methods often suffer from low reaction yields and uncontrolled exciton pathways. Here, we develop a low-temperature polar-solvent synthesis method that achieves a reaction yield of 162 mg mL−1 and optimizes exciton routing for improved energy transfer. This approach increases the Stokes shift and reduces the radioluminescence decay to 7.19 ns. Consequently, high-speed X-ray imaging at 7,680 frames per second with a spatial resolution of 27.6 line-pairs per millimeter is achieved, supporting sustainable commercialization of perovskite nanocrystal scintillators for dynamic X-ray imaging.
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All data are available in the main text and supplementary materials. The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors on request. Source data are provided in this paper.
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Acknowledgements
This work was financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2024YFA1210002 (X.M.)), NSFC (U23A20359, 62222405 (X.M.)), Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20220142 (X.M.)), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (30922010713 (X.M.)), the Postgraduate Research & Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province (KYCX24_0656 (X.D.)). This work was supported by the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) and Hangzhou Tiray Technology Co., Ltd. We also thank the support from Dalian TIME-TECH SPECTRA Co. Ltd. for the time-resolved ultrafast PL measurement.
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X.M. and O.M. conceived the idea and supervised the research. X.D. and Z.C. synthesized the PNCs and carried out the material characterization and data analysis. S.T. helped with density functional calculations. I.N., Q.T., X.L., and Z.G. carried out the pumped TA characterization. Yue. W. and Z.G. provided suggestions for the nanoplatelet thickness analysis and draft writing. J.L. assisted with the Elliott fitting and TA interpretation. Ye. W. helped with GIWAXS analysis. R.Q. conducted some of the TEM characterization. Y.F. contributed to the characterization of the scintillator film surface morphology. X.D. and Z.C. fabricated the spray-coated scintillator film and conducted most of the X-ray imaging. X.D. and X.M. wrote the original draft, H.B., O.B., and H.A. provided relevant equipment and characterization resources. O.M. and J.X. helped revise the manuscript. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.
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Hu, X., Wang, Z., Thomas, S. et al. Polar solvent strategy enables scalable synthesis of perovskite nanocrystal scintillators for fast X-ray imaging. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-71288-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-71288-0
