What is a Scintillation Counter?

A scintillation counter refers to a detection device that uses rays or particles to cause a scintillator to emit light and records the intensity and energy of the rays through a photoelectric device. In 1911, E. Rutherford observed with a microscope that a single alpha particle caused light emission on zinc sulfide. In 1919, he first observed the alpha particles bombarding nitrogen to produce oxygen and protons with a fluorescent screen detector. This is the prototype of a scintillation counter. The official scintillation counter was invented by J. Coltman and H. Kalman in 1947. The scintillation counter consists of a scintillator, a light collection system, and an optoelectronic device. The electrical pulses output by the optoelectronic device enter the particle data acquisition system through the previous electronics system (amplification, shaping, screening, etc.), and perform data processing and analysis.

Flicker counter

Scintillation counter refers to the use of

Scintillator materials are capable of emitting light when exposed to radiation

The light collection system is a scintillator with

The photomultiplier tube uses the photoelectric effect to convert the photon flow into an electron flow, and uses

Scintillation counter is one of the most important ray detectors. It is widely used in nuclear physics, high-energy physics, radioactive applications such as nuclear medicine, geological exploration, and radiation dose measurement. It has become an important observation instrument in X-ray astronomy and gamma-ray astronomy. . Many new technologies and processes based on scintillation detectors are developing rapidly, such as the use of scintillation fiber for electromagnetic calorimeters, track chambers, time-of-flight counters in high-energy physics experiments, using microchannel photomultipliers and charge-coupled devices (CCD ) Multiple scintillation detection devices with precise position resolution combined with scintillation fiber, using a scintillator-avalanche diode (APD) system for electromagnetic calorimeters and computer tomography CT for nuclear medicine. ^{[2] [3]}