Comparative scintillation performance of EJ-309, EJ-276, and a novel organic glass

Abstract

An organic glass scintillator developed by Sandia National Laboratories was characterized in terms of its light output and pulse shape discrimination (PSD) properties and compared to commercial liquid (EJ-309) and plastic (EJ-276) organic scintillators. The electron light output was determined through relative comparison of the ${}^{137}$Cs Compton edge location. The proton light yield was measured using a double time-of-flight technique at the 88-Inch Cyclotron at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Using a tunable broad-spectrum neutron source and an array of pulse-shape-discriminating observation scintillators, a continuous measurement of the proton light yield was performed for EJ-309 (200 keV$-$3.2 MeV), EJ-276 (170 keV$-$4.9 MeV), and the organic glass (50 keV$-$20 MeV). Finally, the PSD properties of the organic glass, EJ-309, and EJ-276 were evaluated using an AmBe source and compared via a figure-of-merit metric. The organic glass exhibited a higher electron light output than both EJ-309 and EJ-276. Its proton light yield and PSD performance were comparable to EJ-309 and superior to that of EJ-276. With these performance characteristics, the organic glass scintillator is well poised to replace current state-of-the-art PSD-capable scintillators in a range of fast neutron detection applications.

32 pages, 13 figures, 9 tables

References in corpus (6)

• Digital pulse-shape discrimination of fast neutrons and gamma rays
• Proton Light Yield in Organic Scintillators using a Double Time-of-Flight Technique
• Low Energy Light Yield of Fast Plastic Scintillators
• Neutron Spectroscopy for Pulsed Beams with Frame Overlap using a Double Time-of-Flight Technique
• High-precision characterization of the neutron light output of stilbene along the directions of maximum and minimum response
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Cited by in corpus (4)

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• Generalized Method for the Optimization of Pulse Shape Discrimination Parameters
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