Calibration of EJ-276 plastic scintillator for neutron–gamma pulse shape discrimination experiments

Abstract

Calibration of the scintillator detector based on a plastic scintillator EJ-276 for neutron–gamma pulse shape discrimination (PSD) experiments was carried out. Optical characteristics of electrons as the function of their deposited energy were experimentally studied. The calibration was implemented by comparing the experimental response from gamma sources with that obtained by means of GEANT4 simulation. It is shown that a similar relationship for protons built on the basis of the published data on EJ-299-33, is also applicable to EJ-276 which confirms the information about the equivalence of these scintillators. The experimental response of the EJ-276 to 14 MeV neutrons is compared with Geant4 simulation data. The experimental and simulated data were also presented as the function of light output in electronic equivalent (MeVee) obtained by both exponential and Birks’ laws.An experimental setup was constructed with Ø51 × 51 mm EJ-276 scintillator. The CAEN DT5730B digitizer was used for PSD signal discrimination. Based on the current experiments and the earlier published data a calibration relation between the setup channels and the light output was obtained in electronic equivalent (MeVee).