Nowadays image plates (IP) are frequently used for 2D detection of x-rays in medicine and materials research. Commercial IPs thereby consists of the storage phosphor BaFBr:Eu²⁺ in form of a powder mixed with a polymer binder and applied evenly on a flexible substrate. The spatial resolution of those plates is limited by light scattering introduced by the difference of refractive index of the binder and the phosphor grains. For IPs with higher spatial resolution the X-ray storage phosphor CsBr:Eu²⁺ is a promising material since it can be grown in form of needles on a glass substrate using evaporation techniques. The higher resolution of those NIPs (needle image plates) thereby is achieved by a light guiding effect resulting from the thin needles exhibiting diameters in the ten-micrometer scale. The present problem with those NIPs is the low radiation hardness due to a missing spatial stability of Eu²⁺ in the CsBr-lattice. This poor radiation hardness can be explained by large colour centres (F₂ (M)- centers) generated during irradiation, which agglomerated with activator/vacancy dipoles (Eu²⁺ - V_Cs) thereby increasing the diffusivity of Eu²⁺. This leads to larger Eu-aggregations, which loose their luminescence properties and explains the poor radiation hardness by loss of active Eu²⁺. By means of thermally stimulated luminescence (TSL), photostimulated luminescence (PSL), and diffuse reflection spectroscopy it will be demonstrated that codoping with Me⁺ ions reduces the Eu-aggregation and thus increases the radiation hardness.

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