Research advances in metal halides for flexible indirect X‐ray imaging

Abstract

In recent years, metal halides (MHs) have emerged as ideal materials for indirect X‐ray detection scintillators due to their superior radiation luminescence properties, tunable luminescence, and low‐cost fabrication. However, rigid scintillators often suffer from dark corner effects in imaging applications targeting curved objects or complex geometries. This leads to brightness decay at image edges and spatial response inhomogeneities, thereby hindering high‐quality, high‐fidelity imaging. Therefore, it is of significant importance to develop flexible scintillator films that combine large‐area coverage, high spatial resolution, excellent flexibility and uniform scintillation performance. As there is currently a lack of systematic reviews specifically addressing the manufacturing processes for flexible scintillators based on MHs for X‐ray detection, it is of great significance to conduct a systematic review to identify the challenges in the manufacturing of flexible scintillators and propose solutions. This review systematically summarizes the structural optimization strategies for flexible films based on polymer substrates and the research progress in manufacturing flexible amorphous scintillators. It also summarizes the key performance parameters of MHs scintillators and the relevant characterization methods for flexibility. Finally, it discusses the core challenges currently facing flexible scintillators and outlines future development directions for flexible MHs scintillators indirect detectors.