Construction of plastic scintillators using ultraviolet based photopolymerization

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Abstract

Plastic scintillators are one of the most widely used scintillators due to their resistance to mechanical stresses and thermal shocks, as well as their low price. Common methods for polymerization of plastic scintillators are time consuming and there are difficulties in making the desired shape. One of the new methods in the rapid fabrication of plastic scintillators is photopolymerization. In this study, UV Cure resin, based on PMMA polymer, and different percentages of diphenyl oxazole (PPO) as primary fluorophore and phenyl oxazole benzene (POPOP) as secondary fluorophore and naphthalene were used to make plastic scintillators, and their optimal percentage of them was determined. The photopolymerization process was performed by a 500Wcm-2 mercury lamp. Samples were compared with a commercial UPS-89 plastic scintillator. The results showed that the light yield of the samples was almost a quarter of that of the commercial UPS-89 scintillator. Also, increasing the percentage of PPO and naphthalene additive, cause increasing the light yield of plastic scintillation.

Keywords


[1] J. Zhu, Y. Ding, J. Zhu, D. Qi, M. Su, Y. Xu, Y. Bi, R. Lin and L. Zhang. Preparation and characterization of a novel UV-curable plastic scintillator, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, A817 (2016) 30–34. [2] C.H. Lee, J. Son, T.H. Kim, and Y.K. Kim. Characteristics of Plastic Scintillators Fabricated by a Polymerization Reaction, Nuclear Engineering and Technology, 49 (2017) 592-597. [3] G. Pang, S.B. Ahmad, B. Keller, and A. Sarfehnia. Quantifying the impact of lead doping on plastic scintillator response to radiation, American Association of Physicists in Medicine, (2019). [4] M. Hamel and G. Lebouteiller. Attempting to prepare a plastic scintillator from a biobased polymer, Applied Polymer Science, (2019). [5] S. Lee, J. Son, D.G. Kim, J. Choi and Y.K. Kim. Characterization of plastic scintillator fabricated by UV LED curing machine, Nuclear Inst. and Methods in Physics Research, A929 (2019) 23–28. [6] D.M. Poehlmann, D. Barker, H. Chagani, P. Cushman. G. Heuermann, A. Medved, H.E. Rogers and R. Schmitz. Characterization of Gadolinium-loaded Plastic Scintillator for Use as a Neutron Veto, Instrumentation and Detectors (physics.ins-det), (2019). [7] N.P. Zaitseva, M.L. Carman, N. Cherepy, A.M. Glenn, S. Hamel, S.A. Payne and B.L. Rupert. Plastic scintillator with effective pulse shape discrimination for neutron and gamma detection, US 9,309,456 B2, Apr. 12, (2016). [8] N.P. Zaitseva, M.L. Carman, M.A. Faust, A.M. Glenn, H. P. Martinez, I.A. Pawelezak, S.A. Payne and K.E. Lewis. System and plastic scintillator for discrimination of thermal neutron, fast neutron, and gamma radiation, US 9,650,564 B2, May 16, (2017). [9] S. Kim and Y.H. Seoung. Proton-Induced Scintillation Properties of a UV-Cured Plastic Scintillator, Korean Physical Society, 73 (2018) 1123-1125. [10] D.G. Kim, S. Lee, J. Park, J. Son, T.H. Kim, Y.H. Kim, K. Pak and Y.K. Kim. Performance of 3D printed plastic scintillators for gamma-ray detection, Nuclear Engineering and Technology, 52 (2020) 2910-2917. [11] J. Son, D.G. Kim, S. Lee, J. Park, Y. Kim, T. Schaarschmidt and Y.K. Kim. Improved 3D Printing Plastic Scintillator Fabrication, Korean Physical Society, 73 (2018) 887-892. [12] S.W. Moser, W.F. Harder, C.R. Hurlbut and M.R. Kusner. Principles and practice of plastic scintillator design, Radiat. Phys. Chem, 41 (1993) 31-36. [13] N. Divani-Vais, E. Bayat, M.M. Firoozabadi, N. Ghal-Eh. Neutron-gamma discrimination with UGAB scintillator using zero-crossing method, Radiation Protection Dosimetry, 154(3) (2013) 381-384. [14] B. Whittaker and M.F. Watts. The influence of dose rate, ambient temperature and time on the radiation response of Harwell PMMA dosimeters, Radiation Physics and Chemistry 60 (2001) 101-110.