Performance comparison of scintillators for alpha particle detectors

Yuki Morishita, Seiichi Yamamoto, Kenji Izaki, Junichi H. Kaneko, Kohei Toui, Youichi Tsubota, Mikio Higuchi

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

31 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Scintillation detectors for alpha particles are often used in nuclear fuel facilities. Alpha particle detectors have also become important in the research field of radionuclide therapy using alpha emitters. ZnS(Ag) is the most often used scintillator for alpha particle detectors because its light output is high. However, the energy resolution of ZnS(Ag)-based scintillation detectors is poor because they are not transparent. A new ceramic sample, namely the cerium doped Gd2Si2O7 (GPS) scintillator, has been tested as alpha particle detector and its performances have been compared to that one of three different scintillating materials: ZnS(Ag), GAGG and a standard plastic scintillator. The different scintillating materials have been coupled to two different photodetectors, namely a photomultiplier tube (PMT) and a Silicon Photo-multiplier (Si-PM): the performances of each detection system have been compared. Promising results as far as the energy resolution performances (10% with PMT and 14% with Si-PM) have been obtained in the case of GPS and GAGG samples. Considering the quantum efficiencies of the photodetectors under test and their relation to the emission wavelength of the different scintillators, the best results were achieved coupling the GPS with the PMT and the GAGG with the Si-PM

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)383-386
Number of pages4
JournalNuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment
Volume764
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2014 Nov 11
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Alpha particle measurement
  • Energy resolution
  • GAGG
  • GPS:Ce
  • Light output

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Nuclear and High Energy Physics
  • Instrumentation

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