Characterization of plastic scintillator fabricated by UV LED curing machine

Abstract

Production of plastic scintillators using 3D printing technology has gained increased interest, and related researches are being published. However, research results show that the performance of plastic scintillators, such as light yield or decay time, is still poor compared to that of commercial products. In order to improve the scintillator performance, a UV-curable solution was prepared by applying ADS148BE, a new wavelength shifter, from which a plastic scintillator was fabricated using a UV LED curing machine. The maximum emission wavelength of the prepared scintillator occurred at 429 nm. The transmittance at peak emission was 49%. The scintillation efficiency was measured to be 43% of BC408 (Saint-Gobain Crystals). The light yield was determined to be 35% of BC408. It is about 1.9 times better than that of a scintillator fabricated by a UV lamp of a previously published paper [12]. The light output was estimated as 33.7% of BC408. The decay time was approximately 2.46 ns. This is the relative value measured after setting the decay time of the reference scintillator to match the manufacturer's data. Compared to the UV-curable plastic scintillator of previously reported studies, we have improved the overall performance of our sample and will be able to make precise shapes with a 3D printer.