Radioactive contamination of scintillators

Abstract

Low counting experiments (search for double $\beta$ decay and dark matter particles, measurements of neutrino fluxes from different sources, search for hypothetical nuclear and subnuclear processes, low background $\alpha$, $\beta$, $\gamma$ spectrometry) require extremely low background of a detector. Scintillators are widely used to search for rare events both as conventional scintillation detectors and as cryogenic scintillating bolometers. Radioactive contamination of a scintillation material plays a key role to reach low level of background. Origin and nature of radioactive contamination of scintillators, experimental methods and results are reviewed. A programme to develop radiopure crystal scintillators for low counting experiments is discussed briefly.

Review, 57 pages, 13 figures, 14 tables

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Cited by in corpus (12)

• Neutrinoless Double-Electron Capture
• Experimental searches for rare alpha and beta decays
• Optical, luminescence, and scintillation properties of advanced ZnWO${}_4$ crystal scintillators
• Search for double beta decay of ${}^{106}$Cd with an enriched ${}^{106}$CdWO${}_4$ crystal scintillator in coincidence with CdWO${}_4$ scintillation counters
• CUPID, the CUORE Upgrade with Particle IDentification
• Test of ${}^{116}$CdWO${}_4$ and Li${}_2$MoO${}_4$ scintillating bolometers in the CROSS underground facility with upgraded detector suspension
• Twelve-crystal prototype of Li${}_2$MoO${}_4$ scintillating bolometers for CUPID and CROSS experiments
• Li${}_2$${}^{100\text{depl}}$MoO${}_4$ Scintillating Bolometers for Rare-Event Search Experiments
• BINGO innovative assembly for background reduction in bolometric $0\nu \beta \beta$ experiments
• ZnO-based scintillating bolometers: New prospects to study double beta decay of ${}^{64}$Zn
• Development of large-volume ${}^{130}$TeO${}_2$ bolometers for the CROSS $2\beta$ decay search experiment
• High-Dimensional Bayesian Likelihood Normalisation for CRESST's Background Model