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Plastic scintillators with efficient light output and pulse shape discrimination produced via photoinitiated polymerization
Author(s) -
Lim Allison,
Mahl Adam,
Latta Joseph,
Yemam Henok A.,
Greife Uwe,
Sellinger Alan
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of applied polymer science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.575
H-Index - 166
eISSN - 1097-4628
pISSN - 0021-8995
DOI - 10.1002/app.47381
Subject(s) - scintillator , photopolymer , materials science , polymerization , dopant , radiation , optoelectronics , polymer , optics , composite material , physics , doping , detector
Poly(vinyl toluene) (PVT) overdoped with 2,5‐diphenyloxazole and using 1,4‐bis(5‐phenyloxazol‐2‐yl)benzene as a fluorescent secondary dopant can be used to detect and differentiate neutron and gamma radiation via scintillation. The low cost of PVT makes these plastic scintillators attractive for both portable and larger sized first line detection of special nuclear materials. Current fabrication methods rely on thermally initiated radical polymerization that generally requires an approximately 5‐day heating process in order to produce high quality scintillators. In this work, we report a proof‐of‐concept photopolymerization process to prepare plastic scintillators up to 20 g in size in 1 day. These plastic scintillators were comparable to standard thermally polymerized samples in terms of their physical properties and response to various radiation sources. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 136 , 47381.