Scintillation properties of lead sulfate

Conference · Fri Nov 01 00:00:00 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: USDOE; 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
• Resource Relation: Conference: IEEE nuclear science symposium, Santa Fe, NM (United States), 5-9 Nov 1991
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

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