Fiber-optic radiation sensor for detection of tritium

The objective of this study is to develop the radiation sensor, which is composed of a scintillator, an optical fiber bundle and a light measuring device to detect the tritium in real-time. In this study, we have fabricated fiber-optic radiation sensors using inorganic scintillators and plastic optical fiber bundles. Each scintillator interacts with electron or beta ray and generates 455–550 nm wavelength of scintillation photons. An optical fiber bundle is usually made of plastic or glass, which is used to guide the light signal from a scintillating probe to light measuring device. For the purpose of selecting the best scintillator with a high efficiency, fiber-optic sensors manufactured using three kinds of inorganic scintillator such as Gd2O2S:Tb, Y3Al5O12:Ce and CsI:Tl, and they are tested with a metal hydride type of tritium source. In addition, the scintillation photons are measured as a function of distance between a fiber-optic sensor and source. Finally, we have measured the amounts of scintillation photon with different activities of tritium source and compared the measured results with those obtained using a surface activity monitor.