Development of tin-loaded liquid scintillator for the double beta decay experiment

Abstract

Tin-loaded liquid scintillator offers some advantages as a detector for double beta decay experiment. A research program was carried out with the objective of developing such scintillators. Several organometals were loaded into pseudocumene-based liquid scintillator (LS) and light output variation was studied. Up to 50% of tetramethyltin (32.6% w of tin) was successfully loaded into LS and light output was as high as 57% of unloaded LS. We have studied the characteristics and stability of the one liter tin-loaded LS contained in a Teflon vessel. Several γ -ray radioactive sources were used for energy calibration and calibration data were compared with Monte Carlo simulation. Data-taking at the 700 m underground laboratory in Yangyang is ongoing for the search of 0 ν β β decay of 124Sn.