New radiation stable and long-lived plastic scintillator for the SSC

Abstract

A study of the influence of the concentration of secondary fluor, high concentrations of primary dopant, diffusion enhancer, and stabilizer, on radiation hardness is presented. It is concluded that the diffusion enhancing technique is the most powerful method for improving rad hardne5s. A new polystyrene scintillator which contains 2% pT & 0.02% POPOP and 20% diffusion enhancer and 0.02% stabilizer gave 91 % of initial light output immediately after 3MRad in air. Data are presented that show that scintillator prepared from commercial polymer is more radiation hard and has greater light output than scintillator prepared from monomer. It is assumed that this difference is due to different molecular weight distributions. Some protocols for acceleration of aging (yellowing and crazing) are presented. It is shown that one of the main reasons for aging of plastic scintillators is residual monomer.

Long-term stability plastic scintillation for LHAASO-KM2A

“…Environmental aging is a basic parameter characterizing long time stability even without the effect of radiation. Thermooxidative processes resulting in the creation of peroxides which absorb in the region of the scintillation radiation [5] Mechanical degradation due to chemical stress crazing which causes surface cracks that disrupt transmission. It is known that tile surface can 'craze'develop micro-cracks which rapidly destroys the capability of PS to transmit light by total internal reflection [6].…”

Scintillator ageing of the T2K near detectors from 2010 to 2021

“…The issue of plastic scintillator ageing is long known [12], and there are many studies aimed at measuring, characterizing and developing stabilisation methods for these widely used materials (see for example [13][14][15][16][17][18][19]). These studies often consider the impact of potentially controllable environmental factors such as temperature and humidity on the long-term performance of the materials, as well as ways to chemically stabilise them.…”

Refining and testing 12,000 km of scintillating plastic fibre for the LHCb SciFi tracker

“…In the absence of ionising radiation, organic scintillators may still show a slow but continuous degradation of their optical parameters over time scales of years [14][15][16]. The LHCb SciFi tracker is foreseen to operate for about 10 years.…”