Scintillation counter

A scintillation counter is an instrument for detecting and measuring ionizing radiation by using the excitation effect of incident radiation on a scintillating material, and detecting the resultant light pulses. It consists of a scintillator which generates photons in response to incident radiation, a sensitive photodetector (usually a photomultiplier tube (PMT), a charge-coupled device (CCD) camera, or a photodiode), which converts the light to an electrical signal and electronics to process this signal. Scintillation counters are widely used in radiation protection, assay of radioactive materials and physics research because they can be made inexpensively yet with good quantum efficiency, and can measure both the intensity and the energy of incident radiation. History The first electronic scintillation counter was invented in 1944 by Sir Samuel Curran whilst he was working on the Manhattan Project at the University of California at Berkeley. There was a requirement to m

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Novel radiation hard microfabricated scintillation detectors with high spatial resolution

Sébastien Jiguet, Alessandro Mapelli, Philippe Renaud, Noelia Vico Triviño

A novel liquid scintillation detector with high spatial resolution is being developed with standard microfabrication techniques. It consists of a dense array of scintillating waveguides obtained by filling microfluidic channels with an organic liquid scintillator and optically coupled to a pixellated photodetector. Such a microfluidic device can be designed and processed to meet the requirements of a wide range of applications like medical imaging, homeland security and high-energy physics. High-spatial resolution miniaturized detectors as well as large-area detectors can easily be fabricated. The fabrication process of a prototype detector and experimental results are presented in this paper.

Elsevier2010

Development and Studies of Novel Microfabricated Radiation Hard Scintillation Detectors With High Spatial Resolution

Sébastien Jiguet, Alessandro Mapelli, Philippe Renaud, Noelia Vico Triviño

A new type of scintillation detector is being developed with standard microfabrication techniques. It consists of a dense array of scintillating waveguides obtained by coupling microfluidic channels filled with a liquid scintillator to photodetectors. Easy manipulation of liquid scintillators inside microfluidic devices allow their flushing, renewal, and exchange making the active medium intrinsically radiation hard. Prototype detectors have been fabricated by photostructuration of a radiation hard epoxy resin (SU-8) deposited on silicon wafers and coupled to a multi-anode photomultiplier tube (MAPMT) to read-out the scintillation light. They have been characterized by exciting the liquid scintillator in the 200 micrometers thick microchannels with electrons from a Sr-90 yielding approximately 1 photoelectron per impinging Minimum Ionizing Particle (MIP). These promising results demonstrate the concept of microfluidic scintillating detection and are very encouraging for future developments.

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers2011

SU-8 microfluidic device for scintillating particle detection

Sébastien Jiguet, Alessandro Mapelli, Philippe Renaud, Noelia Vico Triviño

This paper presents the study of a novel scintillation detector based on standard microfabrication techniques. It consists of a fine pitch array of hollow waveguides filled with a liquid scintillator and optically coupled to photodetectors. The detector has been fabricated by patterning the SU-8 photoresist on silicon wafers. Experimental studies have been performed by exciting the liquid scintillator contained in the SU-8 waveguides with electrons. The scintillation light produced was read out by an external photodetector. The results obtained with this set-up demonstrate the concept of microfluidic scintillation detection and are very encouraging for future developments.

Elsevier2009