Fast, Radiation‐Hard Scintillating Detector: A Potential Application for Sol‐Gel Glass

Abstract

To meet the present-day rate and radiation dose requirements, one would like to have a scintillator with the high radiation resistance of pure silica glass and the short fluorescence decay time of organic fluors. The new technology of sol-gel glass production permits the preparation of organic/ inorganic composite materials by doping the silica gels with organic fluors. The procedure of production of monolithic organiclinorganic composite materials, such as 2-(4-tert-butylphenyl)-5-(4-biphenylyl)-1,3,4-oxadiazole/Si02, p-terphenyll S O 2 , p-quaterphenyl/Si02, and 3-hydroxyflavone/Si02, and the associated characterization techniques are described. The efficiency of light production, the light attenuation, the time width of light pulse, and the radiation resistance of the scintillating sol-gel glass are discussed. Preliminary results indicate that this technical advance will permit the creation of new materials with potential application such as particle detectors which are both radiation hard and fast.

Effective conjugation and Raman intensities in oligo(para-phenylene)s: A microscopic view from first-principles calculations

“…1,2 In addition to exhibiting metallic conductivity when heavily doped, 3 PPP and its planarized derivatives have been extensively studied for their optoelectronic properties. [4][5][6] The corresponding oligomers, the oligo͑para-phenylene͒s ͑OPPs͒, are also of interest: p-terphenyl ͑P3P͒ and p-quaterphenyl ͑P4P͒ are used as UV laser dyes, 7,8 in scintillation counters, 9 and as wavelength shifters, 10 while the longer p-sexiphenyl ͑P6P͒ is used as active layer in organic light emitting devices. 11,12 Moreover, P4P, p-quinquephenyl ͑P5P͒, and P6P have been exploited in organic field-effect transistors.…”

Properties of gel-silica optical matrices with 4.5-nm and 9.0-nm pores

“…Previous work from our group"5'7 and also from Nogues and co-investigators, 6 King and co-workers'5'16 at the University of Manchester, UK and Phillips and colleagues17 at Loughborough University of Technology in the UK, have shown the merit of using Type VI gel-silica matrices as a route to producing optical composites. However, most of the early work from Florida, Manchester and Loughborough has emphasized the use of Type VI gel-silica optical matrices with very small pores of 1.2 to 1.4 nm.…”

Sol-Gel Processing of Nanostructured Inorganic Scintillating Materials

“…Sol-Gel chemistry has been initially developed as an alternative route to glasses. Sol-Gel derived glasses in particular doped with Ce 3+ ions have been considered as scintillating materials; see for instance work from Chiodini et al [9,10] or Nogues et al [11] and references therein. Another interesting possibility is offered by the intrinsic porosity of sol-gel-derived glasses.…”