Measurement of Detector Resolution for Photon Detection with Organic Liquid Scintillation Detectors

Year
2011
Author(s)
M. M. Bourne - Department of Nuclear Engineering & Radiological Sciences, University of Michigan
M. M. Bourne - Department of Nuclear Engineering & Radiological Sciences, University of Michigan
S. D. Clarke - Department of Nuclear Engineering & Radiological Sciences, University of Michigan
S. D. Clarke - Department of Nuclear Engineering & Radiological Sciences, University of Michigan
M. Flaska - Department of Nuclear Engineering & Radiological Sciences, University of Michigan
M. Flaska - Department of Nuclear Engineering & Radiological Sciences, University of Michigan
A. Enqvist - Department of Nuclear Engineering & Radiological Sciences, University of Michigan
A. Enqvist - Department of Nuclear Engineering & Radiological Sciences, University of Michigan
S. A. Pozzi - Department of Nuclear Engineering & Radiological Sciences, University of Michigan
Abstract
The characterization of the photon energy resolution of a liquid scintillation detector is desirable for simulating photon pulse height distributions in Monte Carlo codes such as MCNPX-PoliMi. Previous studies in literature determined a function characterizing the photon energy resolution for four photon detectors using the wide-angle Compton coincidence technique. The goal of this work is to utilize this technique to measure the photon resolution for the EJ-309 organic scintillation detector. The photon energy resolution was measured for a 5-cm by 5-cm EJ-309 organic scintillation detector using a high-purity germanium (HPGe) detector and a 1-µCi 22Na source. To validate this method, the photon energy resolution was also measured for a 7.6-cm by 7.6-cm sodium-iodine (NaI) detector using an HPGe detector and a 1-µCi 60Co source. The NaI resolution measured using this technique showed similar agreement with previous measurements, while the EJ-309 liquid scintillator resolution was shown to be approximately 50% worse than that observed for a plastic scintillator.