Characterization of a high light yield liquid scintillator with a novel organosilicon fluor developed for astroparticle physics experiments

Abstract

A new high light yield liquid scintillator based on linear alkylbenzene (LAB) as an organic solvent and a novel nanostructured organosilicon liminophore as a scintillation fluor has been developed for the next generation large-scale experiments in astroparticle physics. It is shown that the developed liquid scintillator has light yield almost two times higher than traditional LAB-based liquid scintillator with PPO fluor, when peak light yield values are compared, since the former peaks at 490 nm, while the latter peaks at 360 nm. At the same time light emission kinetics is characterized by about 10 ns decay time constant for its fastest component which contributes more than 80% to the total light yield of the scintillator.