Measurement of proton quenching factors in p-terphenyl
Abstract
The organic scintillator p-terphenyl (C18H14) is fast, bright, and provides excellent pulse-shape discrimination (PSD). These properties make p-terphenyl a versatile scintillator for use in neutron detectors. In order to characterize the scintillation efficiency of p-terphenyl for more accurate data collection, it is important to understand the amount of quenching as a function of particle energy. Quenching accounts for molecular de-excitation that does not result in the production of light in the scintillator. In this work, quenching factors were measured via a monoenergetic proton beam from the K150 cyclotron at the Texas A&M University Cyclotron Institute at several energies from 3 MeV to 15 MeV. A 15-mm x 15-mm x 25-mm crystal of p-terphenyl was coupled to a photomultiplier tube and irradiated with a proton beam under vacuum. The quenching factor was determined by the relationship between the incident proton energy and the measured proton energy.
This work was supported in part by NSF Grant Number PHY-1659847 and the U.S. DOE (NNSA) through Grant Number DE-NA003841.- Publication:
-
APS Division of Nuclear Physics Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019APS..DNP.HA031M