12 noviembre 2025
Plastic scintillators exhibit great versatility in radiation detection, making them essential diagnostic tools in numerous scientific areas. Their application in characterizing charged particle beams – whether from particle accelerators or laser-plasma interactions – is particularly common. However, the detailed processes that govern their luminescence are still being studied, primarily due to the structural complexity of the organic macro-molecules that constitute them. Moreover, precise calibration is crucial for accurately determining incident particle flux – whether from photons or charged particles – which is vital for exact dose calculations. This paper investigates the luminescent properties of the plastic scintillator EJ-212 from Eijen by irradiating it with monoenergetic pulsed proton beams using a spectrometer. The Birks coefficients, which indicate the number of luminescent photons produced per incident particle, were obtained by directly capturing the luminescence images with a CMOS camera coupled to a standard objective. Additionally, Monte Carlo simulations were conducted to evaluate the energy deposited by protons as a function of penetration depth for energies ranging from 2 to 8 MeV.
Teresa Cebriano, Jon Imanol Apiñaniz, Mauricio Rico, José Olivares, Santanu Kumar Padhi, Isabel Rodríguez Pérez, Gastón García, Giancarlo Gatti.
