Difference between scintillator detector and scintillator counter
Answers
Answered by
0
Scintillation Counter
A scintillation counter is a device used for detecting and measuring ionizing radiation. It includes a scintillator that generates light photons in response to incident radiation, which is a sensitive photomultiplier tube that converts light to an electrical signal and also includes the needed electronics to process the photomultiplier tube output.
Scintillation counters are used broadly because they can be made at a low cost yet offer excellent quantum efficiency and can determine the energy of incident radiation and the intensity.
How Does it Work?
When the scintillator is struck by a charged particle, the atoms are excited and photons are emitted. These are directed at the photocathode of the photomultiplier tube, which emits electrons by the photoelectric effect. Electrostatic acceleration of these electrons takes place and an electric potential causes them to strike the first dynode of the tube. The impact of one electron on the dynode releases several secondary electrons that are accelerated to strike the second dynode. The impact of each successive dynode releases electrons so that there is an amplifying effect at each dynode stage. The potential of each stage is higher than the previous one so that an accelerating field is formed.
The resulting output signal at the anode is in the form of a measurable pulse for each photon that is detected at the photocathode and passed to the processing electronics. The pulse holds data about the energy of the initial incident energy on the scintillator. This allows the user to measure energy and intensity of the radiation.
Research
In 2012, the University of Florida researchers discovered a new optically transparent material based on specially designed nanoparticles that when integrated in scintillation counters allow sensitive ionizing radiation economically. This technique is not just highly effective for radiation detection, it is also versatile and can be suited to a number of different radioactive conditions and different types of radiation. Furthermore, production is more economical than conventional single crystal growth manufacturing methods.
Professor Hiroki Kanda delivered a presentation in 2012 on the development of a scintillation counter with MPPC readout for the internal tagging system. The team is developing an electron counter array for the photon tagging spectrometer at the Research Centre for Electron Photon Science, Tohoku University (ELPH). The multi-pixel photon counters (MPPC) from Hamamatsu were selected as photon sensors for the scintillation counters. The counter is rectangular prism-shaped with a square cross section of 3 mm combined with the MPPC. A prototype of the electron detector was fabricated and a beam test was performed.
Current Applications
Scintillation counters are used for the following applications:
Pharmaceutical, academic researchNuclear power and environmental applicationsRadioactive contaminationCellular research, epigenetics and cancer researchIn vivo and ELISA alternative technologiesProtein interaction and detectionScreening technologies
Future Developments
It is anticipated that in the future these devices will have higher speed, better sensitivity and lower noise. Further improvement will include the integration of a pre-amp within the device as part of its fundamental structure. Certain advantages of these detectors will be fabricating them into odd shapes and sizes and tuning them for spectral sensitivity and they may be quite economical.
In the coming decade, the small size and cost of computers along with their number crunching capability will create excellent scintillation measurement systems. For liquid scintillation counting it is expected that these computers will be combined with artificial intelligence. The instrument of the future will initiate the measurement cycle by taking a background and processing the data in several ways.
While measuring each sample, the response spectrum will be studied by pattern recognition techniques to identify the isotopes present, the impact of both fluorescence and color quenching, sample changes during counting, volume corrections and chemiluminescence may be indicated. The true disintegration rate of each nuclide present will be determined along with the probable measurement error. The instruments of the future will be self-learning and may learn to re-program itself.
A scintillation counter is a device used for detecting and measuring ionizing radiation. It includes a scintillator that generates light photons in response to incident radiation, which is a sensitive photomultiplier tube that converts light to an electrical signal and also includes the needed electronics to process the photomultiplier tube output.
Scintillation counters are used broadly because they can be made at a low cost yet offer excellent quantum efficiency and can determine the energy of incident radiation and the intensity.
How Does it Work?
When the scintillator is struck by a charged particle, the atoms are excited and photons are emitted. These are directed at the photocathode of the photomultiplier tube, which emits electrons by the photoelectric effect. Electrostatic acceleration of these electrons takes place and an electric potential causes them to strike the first dynode of the tube. The impact of one electron on the dynode releases several secondary electrons that are accelerated to strike the second dynode. The impact of each successive dynode releases electrons so that there is an amplifying effect at each dynode stage. The potential of each stage is higher than the previous one so that an accelerating field is formed.
The resulting output signal at the anode is in the form of a measurable pulse for each photon that is detected at the photocathode and passed to the processing electronics. The pulse holds data about the energy of the initial incident energy on the scintillator. This allows the user to measure energy and intensity of the radiation.
Research
In 2012, the University of Florida researchers discovered a new optically transparent material based on specially designed nanoparticles that when integrated in scintillation counters allow sensitive ionizing radiation economically. This technique is not just highly effective for radiation detection, it is also versatile and can be suited to a number of different radioactive conditions and different types of radiation. Furthermore, production is more economical than conventional single crystal growth manufacturing methods.
Professor Hiroki Kanda delivered a presentation in 2012 on the development of a scintillation counter with MPPC readout for the internal tagging system. The team is developing an electron counter array for the photon tagging spectrometer at the Research Centre for Electron Photon Science, Tohoku University (ELPH). The multi-pixel photon counters (MPPC) from Hamamatsu were selected as photon sensors for the scintillation counters. The counter is rectangular prism-shaped with a square cross section of 3 mm combined with the MPPC. A prototype of the electron detector was fabricated and a beam test was performed.
Current Applications
Scintillation counters are used for the following applications:
Pharmaceutical, academic researchNuclear power and environmental applicationsRadioactive contaminationCellular research, epigenetics and cancer researchIn vivo and ELISA alternative technologiesProtein interaction and detectionScreening technologies
Future Developments
It is anticipated that in the future these devices will have higher speed, better sensitivity and lower noise. Further improvement will include the integration of a pre-amp within the device as part of its fundamental structure. Certain advantages of these detectors will be fabricating them into odd shapes and sizes and tuning them for spectral sensitivity and they may be quite economical.
In the coming decade, the small size and cost of computers along with their number crunching capability will create excellent scintillation measurement systems. For liquid scintillation counting it is expected that these computers will be combined with artificial intelligence. The instrument of the future will initiate the measurement cycle by taking a background and processing the data in several ways.
While measuring each sample, the response spectrum will be studied by pattern recognition techniques to identify the isotopes present, the impact of both fluorescence and color quenching, sample changes during counting, volume corrections and chemiluminescence may be indicated. The true disintegration rate of each nuclide present will be determined along with the probable measurement error. The instruments of the future will be self-learning and may learn to re-program itself.
Similar questions