Polyethylene naphthalate as scintillator

[Richard Hester]

Polyethylene napthalate (PEN) has been cited as a natural scintillator material, needing no fluorescent additives. I've been wanting to try it out, but so far have not been able to locate a source of the virgin resin or a fabricated rod of virgin material. One supplier has rod stock, but it's horribly expensive and black, to boot. One Chinese supplier has virgin granules, but a minimum buy quantity of 3,000 pounds - that's so not happening...

[Richard Hull]

I wonder how gamma efficient is it, say, compared to NaI? Still, it would be cool to have some to try out. Pitch black is another non-starter.

Richard Hull

[Richard Hester]

It's probably similar to other plastic scintillators re gamma discrimination, so I wouldn't get my hopes up.

[Richard Hester]

Here's a presentation on PEN used as scintillator, also mentions PET, which might need a wavelength converter to mesh with the usual PMT.

https://agenda.linearcollider.org/event ... llator.pdf

[Richard Hester]

A thought - I work for a company that deals in ICs, so we have a bunch of plastic rails around for carrying the parts - one of the rails at my desk shows what appears to be bulk fluorescence when exposed to daylight - could it be molded from PEN?

[Alex Aitken]

Possible, but fluorescent chemicals are often added to plastics to stop them being degraded by UV.

[Richard Hester]

I'm beginning to think that the fluorescent bit may be thee anti-static coating on the plastic, as one end has been degraded by exposure to light and there doesn't seem to be fluorescence of any sort on that end. Sigh...