Development of a Thin, Double-Sided Alpha/Beta Detector for Surface-Contamination Measurement

Abstract

Low-level radioactive surface-contamination measurements require lightweight, large-area, and high-efficiency detectors. In the previous work, we utilized wavelength shifting (WLS) fibers, coupled to a beta-sensitive plastic scintillator (PS) layer on one side, and to an alpha-sensitive ZnS(Ag) layer on both sides, for detecting both alpha and beta particles. In this work, the main goal was to improve the light collection (maximizing the number of photons reaching the PMT) by optimizing the WLS fibers structure, for getting better signal-to-noise ratio and to minimize the low-energy threshold of the detector. In most cases, improving the light collection mostly influenced the detector resolution. In our case, improving the light collection will improve the detection efficiency by ability to detect more events at low-energy spectrum, which is limited by the noise level. Aiming to improve the scintillation light-collection efficiency, we investigated and compared four different detector configurations. Two of them described in the previous work presents utilization of WLS fibers, with different diameters ( 1 mmφ, 1.5 mmφ), coupled on the PS. Two other configurations present utilization of WLS fibers ( 1.5 mmφ) installed into a flat groove on the PS layer, while in one configuration we utilized straight WLS fibers and in the other we utilized bent WLS fibers. It was found that the utilization of WLS fibers in bent configuration gives the highest light-collection efficiency. Additionally, there is improved light collection achieved by using WLS fibers with wider diameter ( 1.5 mmφ), which maximizes the capture fraction. Additionally, since ZnS(Ag) and PS have different decay times (200 ns and 2.4 ns, respectively), we were able to separate alpha from beta events. An algorithm script was developed to calculate the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of each pulse and a histogram was generated of the FWHM values for the pulse shape discrimination (PSD). Efficient PSD was achieved for alpha energies above 100 keV with figure of merit (FOM) of 1.92. GEANT4 simulation was carried out and compared with experimental results. The results of both were matched, showed that the light-collection efficiency from the bent WLS fibers configuration was the best. The simulation results and the experiments, including full description of the detector structure, ionization stage, and the WLS light collection, are presented.