Measurement of Light Yield, Timing and Radiation Damage and Recovery of Common Plastic Scintillators

Abstract

PEN and PET (polyethylene naphthalate and teraphthalate) are common plastics used for drink bottles and plastic food containers. They are also good scintillators. Their ubiquity has made them of interest for high energy physics applications, as generally plastic scintillators can be very expensive. However, detailed studies on the performance of the scintillators has not yet been performed.At various tests, we measured the light yield and timing properties of PEN and PET with Fermilab and CERN test beams. We also irradiated several samples to varying gamma doses and investigated their recovery mechanisms. Here we report on the measurements performed over the past few years in order to characterize the scintillation properties of PEN and PET and discuss possible future implementations.