Scintillation fibers and nanoscintillators for improving the spatial, spectrometric, and time resolution of radiation detectors

Experimental examples demonstrate a significant improvement of the most important parameters (sensitivity; spatial, spectrometric, and time resolution; and radiation hardness) of radiation detectors with sensitive elements based on fiber and nanocrystalline scintillators instead of conventional bulk single crystals. This improvement is related to several specific features of the new scintillator types: improved homogeneity of activator distribution, larger soft X-ray component in the secondary emission due to the high frequency of hot electron collisions with the nanoparticle surface, formation of high-quality optical nanocavities, and enhanced annihilation of radiation defects at their rapid motion to the surface.