Performance of large-scale 6Li-doped pulse-shape discriminating plastic scintillators

Abstract

A ${}^6$Li-doped plastic scintillator with pulse-shape discrimination capabilities, commercially identified as EJ-299-50, has been developed and produced at the kilogram-scale. A total of 44 kg-scale bars of dimensions 5.5 cm $\times$ 5.5 cm $\times$ 50 cm of this material have been characterized. Optical properties like light output and effective attenuation length have been found to be comparable to ${}^6$Li-doped liquid scintillators. The scintillator EJ-299-50 shows good neutron detection capabilities with an effective efficiency for capture on ${}^6$Li of approximately 85%. Stability tests performed on two formulation variations showed no intrinsic degradation in the material or optical properties during several months of observations.