Evidence of deep-blue photon emission at high efficiency by common plastic

Abstract

Various scintillation devices are used in many countries and wide scientific fields. Key elements that determine the performance of a scintillation device are the number of photons emitted per incident radiation event and the emission of easy-to-measure blue photons. It is generally known that only materials with very complex compositions perform well as scintillators. However, we demonstrated that the scintillation performance of a newly developed plastic such as 100 percent pure polyethylene naphthalate exceeds that of conventional organic scintillators. By measuring the light output spectra and emission spectra of several samples, we revealed that the plastic emits a high number of photons per incident radiation event (∼10500 photons/MeV), and, surprisingly, deep-blue photons (425 nm). Even though the plastic has a simple composition, it could replace the expensive organic scintillators that have been used in many applications. © Europhysics Letters Association 2011.