Basic Limitation of Scintillation Counters in Time Measurements

The time resolution of a scintillation detector can be calculated from the scintillator illumination function, and the response of the photomultiplier to an instantaneous pulse of light. Such calculations using the parameters of present scintillators and photomultipliers agree with measured resolutions and predict improvements which can be achieved. Parameters of commercial and some promising experimental fast scintillators are given, as well as measurements on transit time spread of some fast photomultipliers.