The Scintillation Process in Alkali Halide Crystals

The scintillation process in impurity-activated alkali halide crystals is considered by analogy to that in binary solid organic solutions. A general relation is proposed for the differential scintillation efficiency dL/dE as the product of the efficiencies of the primary and secondary scintillation processes. The primary efficiency is influenced by electron-hole recombination and ionization quenching and is a function of the specific energy loss dE/dr. The secondary efficiency is influenced by host-activator energy transfer and concentration quenching and is a function of the activator concentration c . Experimental data in support of the model are cited. An extension of the model is proposed to account for the temperature dependence of the scintillation efficiencies and decay times of pure and impurity-activated alkali halides, and this is compared with experimental data.