Speaker
Description
While SrI2(Eu)’s excellent scintillation performance and CLYC(Ce)’s dual mode detection capability make these halides ideal candidates for nuclear radiation detection, these materials are expensive due to decreased crystal growth yield at large diameters (e.g. 3 inches). However, the cost of encapsulating small diameter crystals into a large plastic matrix such as polyvinyltoluene (PVT) is fairly small, and the plastic matrix can even shaped to improve light collection. Thus, composite scintillators hold the promise of providing high performance low-cost gamma/neutron detectors in sizes that would be otherwise prohibitively expensive or impossible to produce.
This presentation will discuss the design, fabrication, and performance of our CLYC-PVT and SrI2(Eu)-PVT composite scintillators. Fabrication of these composites were guided by GEANT4 simulations to characterize the generation, transport, and collection of photons, and their dependence on surface conditions and index of refraction. Our first 2-inch diameter CLYC-PVT achieved an energy resolution of 4.4% at 662 keV and a PSD of 3.2. More recently, we demonstrated the feasibility for 5-inch diameter composite fabrication. Other important considerations for composite fabrication will be discussed.
*This work has been supported by the US Department of Homeland Security, Nuclear Detection Office, under competitively awarded contract HSHQDN-15-C-00013. This support does not constitute an express or implied endorsement on the part of the government.*
