A fast scintillation detector for analytical X-ray instruments

Author

Radtke, J.L.

Volume

37

Issue

2

fYear

1990

fDate

4/1/1990 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

129

Lastpage

133

Abstract

A detector was constructed which consisted of a relatively fast plastic scintillator coupled to two photomultipliers operated in coincidence. The coincidence gate reduced noise from random photomultiplier dark current pulses. The scintillator was shaped so that total internal reflection tended to collimate scintillation light, and it was shown that this increase quantum efficiency. Fast counting electronics were built using ECL (emitter coupled logic) gates; this included a coincidence gate, a single-channel analyzer, and afterpulse rejection circuitry. System dead time was 37 ns. When adjusted to observe 8.1-keV X-rays, the noise pulse rate was 2.0 s^-1 and the quantum efficiency was 86%. This noise rate was significantly lower than that reported by others using organic scintillators and was attributed to the use of coincidence gating and afterpulse rejection

Keywords

X-ray detection and measurement; data acquisition; nuclear electronics; physics computing; scintillation counters; ECL; X-rays; afterpulse rejection circuitry; coincidence gate; counting electronics; dark current pulses; dead time; emitter coupled logic; fast plastic scintillator; noise pulse rate; organic scintillators; photomultipliers; scintillation light; single-channel analyzer; total internal reflection; Circuit noise; Dark current; Instruments; Noise reduction; Noise shaping; Optical reflection; Photomultipliers; Plastics; Scintillation counters; Solid scintillation detectors;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Nuclear Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9499

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/23.106604

Filename

106604