Fast scintillation detectors for high-energy X-ray region

Abstract

We have developed fast scintillation detectors for nuclear resonant scattering experiments using synchrotron radiation and a nuclear excited level existing in >30 keV. A fast x-ray detector using an organic-inorganic perovskite scintillator of phenethylamine lead bromide (PhE-PbBr4) had a dominant light emission with a fast decay time of 9.9 ns. An x-ray detector equipped with a 0.9-mm-thick PhE-PbBr4 crystal (size: ∼8 × 7 mm2) was used to detect nuclear resonant scattering in 61Ni (the first excited level: 67.41 keV; half-life: 5.3 ns). We could successfully record the decaying gamma rays emitted from 61Ni with a relatively high detection efficiency of 24%. A lead-doped plastic scintillator (NE142, Pb ∼5 wt% doped) had been known to have a faster decay time of 1.7 ns. Following a test of a single NE142 detector, a four-channel NE142 detector was fabricated and successfully applied to the synchrotron-radiation based Mossbauer spectroscopy experiment on 61Ni.