Performance comparison of scintillators for alpha particle detectors

Morishita, Yuki   ; Yamamoto, Seiichi*; Izaki, Kenji ; Kaneko, Junichi* ; Toi, Kohei*; Tsubota, Yoichi*; Higuchi, Mikio*

Scintillation detectors for alpha particles are often used in nuclear fuel facilities. Alpha particle detectors have also become important in the research field of radionuclide therapy using alpha emitters. We tested a new ceramic scintillator, a cerium-doped GdSiO: GPS scintillator for an alpha particle detector and compared it with three other scintillators: ZnS(Ag), GAGG, and a plastic scintillator. We optically coupled them to two photodetectors with different types (photomultiplier tube: PMT and silicon photomultiplier: Si-PM) and measured the performance of each scintillator used as the alpha detectors. GPS and GAGG are the most promising alpha particle detectors among the four scintillators because their energy resolutions are good (10% with PMT and 14% with Si-PM). From the relation between the quantum efficiency (QE) distribution of the photodetectors and the emission wavelengths of scintillators, the best combinations were coupling GPS to PMT and GAGG to Si-PM.