All-inorganic metafabric scintillators for conformally flexible and wearable x-ray detection and imaging.

Abstract

Traditional scintillators rely on rigid inorganic matrices with high-<i>Z</i> elements, whose mechanical inflexibility restricts applications in multiple scenarios. Developing an efficient scintillator that combines inorganic properties with flexibility is a desirable yet highly challenging goal. We pioneered an inorganic metafabric scintillator paradigm through self-sustained slip system engineering, transforming brittle all-inorganic scintillation materials into ductile textile architectures, yielding intrinsically conformally flexible scintillators that adhere seamlessly to complex, curved surfaces. The ultimate all-inorganic scintillator delivers near-unity quantum yield, with scintillation output more than 10 times higher than that of previous polymer matrix-based flexible scintillators. Using these metafabric scintillators, a multimodal x-ray interactive wearable platform (X-Wear) was developed, and their applications in body-centered flexible detection and imaging, mobile health, visual radiation monitoring, and breathable radiation shielding were successfully demonstrated. This work offers a previously undefined paradigm for a scintillator system design strategy that maintains the high performance of inorganic scintillators while adding the functionality of being conformally flexible and wearable of fabrics.