Tin and Lead Loaded Plastic Scintillators for Low Energy Gamma-Ray Detection with Particular Application to High Rate Detection

It has been observed that loading plastic scintillators with tin or lead markedly increase their low energy photon detection efficiencies while retaining the characteristic short phosphor decay time of conventional plastic scintillators, These combined effects may have great impact in high rate photon detection: for instance, x-ray transmission 3-D image reconstruction applications in the biomedical field and Mössbauer experiments in nuclear structure studies, Experimental data are here reported on a) photon detection efficiencies using a 5% tin loaded, a 7% tin loaded and a 57% lead loaded plastic scintillator with reference to a NaI(Tl) crystal in the energy range of 20-511 keV; b) high count rate detection up to 20 MHz with 153Gd (42 + 100 keV groups); and c) Mössbauer experiments with thin discs of tin loaded plastic scintillators.