Scintillation properties of lead sulfate

Conference · Fri Nov 01 04:00:00 EST 1991

OSTI ID:5474011

Moses, W W; Derenzo, S E ^[1]; Shlichta, P J ^[2]

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1. Lawrence Berkeley Lab., CA (United States)
2. Crystal Research, San Pedro, CA (United States)

We report on the scintillation properties of lead sulfate (PbSO{sub 4}), a scintillator that show promise as a high energy photon detector. It physical properties are well suited for gamma detection, as its has a density of 6.4 gm/cm{sup 3}, a 1/e attenuation length for 511 keV photons of 1.2 cm, is not affected by air or moisture, and is cut and polished easily. In 99.998% pure PbSO{sub 4} crystals at room temperature excited by 511 keV annihilation photons, the fluorescence decay lifetime contains significant fast components having 1.8 ns (5%) and 19 ns (36%) decay times, but with longer components having 95 ns (36%) and 425 ns (23%) decays times. The peak emission wavelength is 335 nm, which is transmitted by borosilicate glass windowed photomultiplier tubes. The total scintillation light output increases with decreasing temperature fro 3,200 photons/MeV at +45{degrees}C to 4, 900 photons/MeV at room temperature (+25{degrees}C) and 68,500 photons/MeV at {minus}145{degrees}C. In an imperfect, 3 mm cube of a naturally occurring mineral form of PbSO{sub 4} (anglesite) at room temperature, a 511 keV photopeak is seen with a total light output of 60% that BGO. There are significant sample to sample variations of the light output among anglesite samples, so the light output of lead sulfate may improve when large synthetic crystals become available. 10 refs.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Lab., CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE; DOHHS; USDOE, Washington, DC (United States); Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: AC03-76SF00098
• OSTI ID: 5474011
• Report Number(s): LBL-31456; CONF-911106--89; ON: DE92010301; CNN: P01-HL25840; R01-CA48002
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
360204* -- Ceramics
Cermets
& Refractories-- Physical Properties
440103 -- Radiation Instrumentation-- Nuclear Spectroscopic Instrumentation
46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
CRYSTALS
DETECTION
EMISSION SPECTRA
GAMMA DETECTION
LEAD COMPOUNDS
LEAD SULFATES
OPTICAL PROPERTIES
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
RADIATION DETECTION
SCINTILLATIONS
SPECTRA
SULFATES
SULFUR COMPOUNDS
TEMPERATURE DEPENDENCE