A scintillating article comprising a substrate coated with an inorganic scintillating material comprising a doped or undoped material selected from the group consissting of barium fluoride, calcium fluoride, zinc oxide, zinc sulfide, zinc silicate, bismuth germanate, fast cathode ray tube phosphors, yttrium silicate, rare earth silicates, orthosilicates, and mixtures thereof. Also disclosed is an appertaining method of forming such a scintillating article, comprising depositing the inorganic scintillating material by chemical vapor deposition (CVD). In a particularly advantageous embodiment, the substrate is of fibrous form, e.g., a quartz optical quality fiber, which is coated with a scintillating material such as barium fluoride. The scintillating articles of the invention are usefully employed as detectors for ionizing particles in high energy physics applications, such as radiation track imaging and tracking chambers, calorimetry, synchrotron radiation electron detectors, and pixel detectors for active targets, as well as detector elements and high energy particle accelerators and other high rate systems.