A simple method for measuring the performance of plastic scintillating materials

Abstract

The authors propose a method to measure the relative efficiency of scintillating materials based on the fabrication of thin films (10 to 100 mu m) with at least one of the faces roughened. Excitation with a monochromatic beam of ultraviolet light then permits a thorough study of the energy transfer in plastic scintillators and their spectral emission and a comparison of their intrinsic scintillation intensity. The results obtained are reproducible and in satisfactory agreement with direct measurements with alpha radiation. It is shown that the standard ternary scintillator PS+1%butylPBD+dimethylPOPOP cannot be used for the core of a plastic scintillating fiber (PSF) with a diameter smaller then 0.4 mm. Instead, a binary solution, PS+0.6%PBBO, has been studied which makes it possible to consider the production of PSF with a diameter less than 50 mu m, with acceptable crosstalk and good efficiency. >