Abstract
In the field of scintillators, high scintillation and light production performance require high-quality crystals. Although the composition and structure of crystals are fundamental in this direction, their ultimate optical performance is strongly dependent on the surface finishing treatment. This paper compares two surface finishing methods in terms of the final structural condition of the surface and the relative light yield performances. The first polishing method is the conventional “Mechanical Diamond Polishing” (MDP) technique. The second polishing technique is a method applied in the electronics industry which is envisaged for finishing the surface treatment of scintillator crystals. This method, named “Chemical Mechanical Polishing” (CMP), is efficient in terms of the cost and material removal rate and is expected to produce low perturbed surface layers, with a possible improvement of the internal reflectivity and, in turn, the light collection efficiency. The two methods have been applied to a lead tungstate PbWO4 (PWO) single crystal due to the wide diffusion of this material in high energy physics (CERN, PANDA project) and diagnostic medical applications. The light yield (LY) values of both the MDP and CMP treated crystals were measured by using the facilities at CERN while their surface structure was investigated by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Grazing Incidence X-ray Diffraction (GID). We present here the corresponding optical results and their relationship with the processing conditions and subsurface structure.
Highlights
Applications in high energy physics, medicine, security, and environmental monitoring require more and more accurate and sensitive devices to accomplish new challenging goals
The light yield (LY) values of both the Mechanical Diamond Polishing (MDP) and Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) treated crystals were measured by using the facilities at CERN while their surface structure was investigated by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Grazing Incidence X-ray Diffraction (GID)
The results obtained by the GID analysis performed on the different samples are reported in Photonics 2018, 5,Figure x FOR4.PEER REVIEW
Summary
Applications in high energy physics, medicine, security, and environmental monitoring require more and more accurate and sensitive devices to accomplish new challenging goals. In nuclear medicine and bioimaging diagnostics, new frontiers are opened by fast, sensitive, and reliable devices and materials [4,5]. In this sense, the goal of 10 ps coincidence time resolution [6] will open a new era on the real-time diagnosis and monitoring of organs and body systems [7]. The goal of 10 ps coincidence time resolution [6] will open a new era on the real-time diagnosis and monitoring of organs and body systems [7] All these new trends request strong efforts in the production of new and high-quality scintillators. The condition of scintillators must be accurately evaluated, and it is mandatory to finely tune the production process parameters via feedback from
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