Dependence of polytetrafluoroethylene reflectance on thickness at visible and ultraviolet wavelengths in air

Abstract

Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is an excellent diffuse reflector widely used in light collection systems for particle physics experiments. However, the reflectance of PTFE is a function of its thickness. In this work, we investigate this dependence in air for light of wavelengths 260 nm and 450 nm using two complementary methods. We find that PTFE reflectance for thicknesses from 5 mm to 10 mm ranges from 92.5% to 94.5% at 450 nm, and from 90.0% to 92.0% at 260 nm. We also see that the reflectance of PTFE of a given thickness can vary by as much as 2.7% within the same piece of material. Finally, we show that placing a specular reflector behind the PTFE can recover the loss of reflectance in the visible without introducing a specular component in the reflectance.

arXiv comment17 pages, 10 figures

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• Reflectance of Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) for Xenon Scintillation Light
• Radiogenic backgrounds in the NEXT double beta decay experiment
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Cited by in corpus (3)

• The NEXT-100 Detector
• Reflectance and fluorescence characteristics of PTFE coated with TPB at visible, UV, and VUV as a function of thickness
• Lineshape response of plastic scintillator to pair production of 4.44 MeV gamma's