Measurement of delayed fluorescence in plastic scintillator from 1 to 10 μs

Abstract

The time dependence of the relative light emission of Eljen Technology EJ-200 polyvinyltoluene-based plastic scintillator was measured between 1 and 10 μ s after the passage of a particle shower, a singly charged particle (atmospheric muon), and with a UV LED exciting the fluor. This was compared in magnitude to the integrated response for the prompt light (within 500 ns of excitation). A model with a time-dependent yield consisting of three exponentially decaying components (fast, medium, and slow) was developed to fit the data. Note that the exact time structure of early (< 1 μ s ) light emission was not measured for individual components, only for all three components together This model assumes all three components share the same rise time. The decay time constants of the fast, medium and slow components are, respectively, 7.8 ns, 490 ns, and 2370 ns. The relative total normalized yields for each component are: fast 95.8%, medium 2.2%, and slow 2.0%.