Timing Performance of Organic Scintillators for Positron Annihilation Lifetime Spectroscopy

Ming Fang, Nathan Bartholomew, Angela DI Fulvio

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Positron Annihilation Lifetime Spectroscopy (PALS) is a diagnostic method used mostly in material science to investigate solid-state materials' microstructure by measuring the positron lifetime in the material. Typical analog electronics-based PALS experiment is complicated to set up. We report the development of a PALS experimental setup which encompasses organic scintillators and fast digitizers. We interpolated the digital waveform to recover the pulse shape and implemented a constant-fraction discrimination (CFD) timing algorithm to calculate the pulse arrival time. We compared the time resolution performance of three different organic scintillator pairs: BC418, EJ276, and EJ309. We achieved an excellent time resolution of 194.5 1.2 ps using BC418 scintillators, which allows for discrimination ±between different positron lifetime components. We used the optimized experimental setup and used it to determine the lifetimes of positron in two quartz samples. The measured positron lifetimes in quartz are 157 ± 1 ps, 285 ± 1 ps and 1.115± 1 ns, which compares well with the positron annihilation lifetime that characterizes quartz. The system will be used to investigate the nature and density of defects in scintillation crystals.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publication2019 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference, NSS/MIC 2019
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
ISBN (Electronic)9781728141640
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2019
Event2019 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference, NSS/MIC 2019 - Manchester, United Kingdom
Duration: Oct 26 2019Nov 2 2019

Publication series

Name2019 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference, NSS/MIC 2019

Conference

Conference2019 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference, NSS/MIC 2019
Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
CityManchester
Period10/26/1911/2/19

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Signal Processing
  • Radiology Nuclear Medicine and imaging
  • Nuclear and High Energy Physics

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