An instrument for measuring scintillators efficiently based on silicon photomultipliers

An instrument used formeasuring multiple scintillators ’ light output and energy resolution was developed. The instrument consisted of a lightsensor array which was composed of 64 discrete SiPMs(SiliconPhotomultipliers), a corresponding individual channel readout electronics system, and a data processing algorithm. A Teflon grid and a large interval between adjacent SiPMs were employed to eliminate the optical cross talk among scintillators. The scintillators ’ light output was obtained by comparing with a reference sample with known light output. Given the SiPM temperature dependency and the difference among each SiPM, a temperature offset correction algorithm and a non-uniformity correction algorithm were added to the instrument. A positioning algori thm, based on nine points, was designed to evaluate the performance of a scintillator array. Tests were performed to evaluate the instrument’s performance. The uniformity of 64 channels for light outputmeasurement was better than 98%, the stability was better than 98% when temperature varied from 15  °C to 40 °C, and the nonlinearity under 511 keV was better than 2%. This instrument was capable of selecting scintillators and evaluating the packaging technology of scintillator arrays with high efficiency and accuracy.

Source: Review of Scientific Instruments - November 29, 2016 Category: Physics Authors: M. J. Yang, Z. M. Zhang, Y. J. Wang, D. W. Li, W. Zhou, H. H. Tang, Y. T. Liu, P. Chai, L. Shuai, X. C. Huang, S. Q. Liu, M. L. Zhu, X. P. Jiang, Y. W. Zhang, T. Li, B. Ma, S. F. Sun, L. Y. Sun, Q. Wang, Z. R. Lu, T. Zhang and L. Wei Source Type: research