Scintillators
Plastic Scintillators are organic scintillators made from dissolving luminophores (also called fluors or luminescent additives, which are organic scintillating molecules that emit light when reacting to ionizing radiation) into to transparent polymer base, such as polystyrene, polyvinyltoluene, or polyethylene. And forming a durable, clear, solid solution of the two. The chemistry of plastic scintillators can contain 3 compositions: the polymer matrix, the scintillating molecules like aromatic hydrocarbons (e.g., p-terphenyl, stilbene) or organic dyes (e.g., anthracene, perylene), and dopants could be added to make the plastic scintillator more sensitive and efficient.
This is how a plastic scintillator works: When ionizing radiations like gamma, alpha, beta, and neutron enter the plastic scintillator, energies are absorbed and transferred to the luminophores. The luminophores then transfer the energies into light pulses, which can be detected by light sensors, light photomultiplier tubes. The fluoros are responsible for the scintillation, where the polystyrene serves as the solid base material that holds everything together.
The advantages of plastic scintillators are manifold, including lightweight, fast response, decent light output, low cost, and ease of being processed into various shapes and forms. Plastic scintillators provide a fast signal response with a decay time typically between 2ns to 4ns, making them popular for high-speed applications. Plastic scintillator also has good light output (although not as high as NaI(Tl)) in comparison. Plastic scintillators are known for their excellent robustness, large size availability, and flexibility in shape, as they can be produced through molding and machining into various forms.
Regarding the applications of plastic scintillators, plastic scintillators are promising candidates for scintillation dosimetry (click here to learn more about plastic scintillator and scintillation dosimetry) merits, including water equivalence, energy independence, reproducibility, dose linearity, resistance to radiation damage, and near temperature independence. Click here to learn about the applications of plastic scintillators in comparison with other radiation detector types, which you can use as a reference.
Hangzhou Shalom EO offers various plastic scintillators for sale. Our plastic scintillators feature cost-effective prices and superior performance. Our product catalog extends from bulk plastic scintillator materials, where the materials can be provided in various forms, including plates, sheets, blocks, rods/cylinders, rings, to integrated plastic scintillator detectors assembled with PMT, Si diodes, electronic modules, and digital readout units. We can provide plastic scintillator equal to Eljen scintillator and Saint Gobain (now changed to Luxium Solutions) plastic scintillator. In general, we sell plastic scintillator products based on the following materials:
SP101 plastic scintillators emit at 423nm. Shalom EO’s SP101 plastic scintillator is a general-purpose scintillator that is excellent for various radiation detection applications, including gamma, x-radiation, and muons. These scintillators are available in large sizes and are easy to assemble with photomultiplier tubes (PMTs). Shalom EO’s SP101 plastic scintillator is equivalent to Eljen EJ212 and Saint Gobain (now named Luxium Solutions) BC400 plastic scintillator. The SP101 plastic scintillators respond very quickly to radiation, which is crucial in applications where fast timing is important, such as time-of-flight systems. In addition, the SP101 scintillation material also introduces low optical attenuation for light traveling within it over a long distance.
SP102, also emitting at 423 nm, is manufactured using the same kind of material as SP101, but with a different doping concentration optimized for beta radiation detection. The SP102 plastic scintillator materials are primarily offered in thin sheet forms for detection of beta- particles, which have low penetration power and can be easily stopped by thicker materials. Our SP102 plastic scintillator is equivalent to EJ212 and BC400.
SP121, SP122, and SP123 are all Zns(Ag) plastic scintillator, these zinc sulfide coated plastic scintillators have unique characteristics designed specially for detection and descrimination of alpha/beta radiations and low-energy gamma detection. The ZnS:Ag are coated using advanced coating technique, ensuring uniform coating quality and consistent product performance.
Normally, plain plastic scintillators can detect both alpha and beta particles, but struggle to tell them apart. That’s because the signal amplitudes (pulse heights) from alpha and beta particles can be too similar. Simple electronics can’t easily distinguish between them. SP121 consists of a thin SP102 plastic scintillator coated with a ZnS(Ag) coating on one side. The Ag activated zinc sulfide coating of adequate thickness (usually 4.5mg/cm²) stops and catches the alpha particles, emitting 450nm light, while the beta particles penetrate the ZnS coating and interact with the SP102 plastic, resulting in emission of 423nm light from the SP102. This design allows SP121 to detect both types of radiation in a single detector, with different light signals giving clues about the radiation type. The bottom SP102 plastic scintillator is kept thin enough to be insensitive to gamma radiation. The discrimination between alpha and beta is realzed since alpha particles generate stronger signals in the ZnS: Ag coating beta particles, especially lower-energy ones like from C-14, pass into the plastic and produce weaker signals, even high-energy beta particles (like from P-32 and Sr/Y-90) still create signals that are lower in amplitude than most alpha signals. Our SP121 is equivalent to Eljen’s EJ444.
SP122 is made via coating ZnS(Ag) onto SP101, making it effective for low-energy gamma-radiation detection. This plastic scintillator material can detect gamma radiation with 40 keV energy.
SP123 consists of depositing a uniform ZnS(Ag) phosphor coating onto one side of a PMMA sheet or block, and is mainly used for alpha-radiation detection. The zinc sulfide coating is dense enough to completely stop and detect alpha particles from common sources like Americium-241 (²⁴¹Am). The thickness of the PMMA base of our SP121 is equivalent to Eljen’s EJ442 scintillator.
Additionally, Hangzhou Shalom EO also provides an inorganic scintillator, SG101, which is a lithium-6 (Li-6) glass scintillator enriched with Li-6, designed for thermal neutron detection.
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