Optical fibre readout and performance of small scintillating crystals for a fine-grained gamma detector

Abstract The scintillating properties of small zinc tungstate crystals have been investigated, covering photoelectron yield, decay time and radiation hardness. The efficiency of readout of scintillation light using quartz optical fibres coupled to individual crystals has been shown to be roughly as expected from phase space arguments. It is argued that this technique could be useful for reading out large arrays of small crystals, with advantages of cost and ability to withstand large doses of radiation.