High-light yield bismuth-loaded plastic scintillators

Plastic-based scintillator detectors have many advantages over inorganic scintillators, including mechanical ruggedness and cost. However, their range of application has generally been limited by their lack of gamma spectroscopic performance. We have been developing metal-organic doped plastic scintillators which allow for spectroscopy while maintaining the advantages of plastics. These scintillators allow for the use of plastics in many new application spaces. Using iridium based fluors, bismuth loaded plastics have demonstrated high light yields of >20,000 photons/MeV and good energy resolution (<12% FWHM at 662keV) in modest sizes. We are working on scaling up these scintillators to larger sizes for use in radio-isotope identification (RIID) type application. This work was supported by the US DOE Office of NNSA NA-22 DNN Program and was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344.