Investigation of Inorganic Scintillators with MPPC Arrays for Alpha Particle Spectroscopy

Abstract

This work presents the potential of non-traditional scintillators for alpha detection, complemented by MPPC readout. ZnS (Ag) and CsI (TI) scintillators are widely used for alpha particle detection. Inorganic scintillators such as BGO, YSO, GAGG and CaF2 have not been widely studied in alpha spectroscopy, yet they hold considerable research potential. In this study, the performance of different scintillators (BGO, YSO, GAGG and CaF2) complemented by MPPC readout and investigated for alpha spectroscopy in the range of 1 MeV to 5.5 MeV using Pu-238, and Pu-239. Besides these alpha sources, different energies of alpha particles in the range of 1 MeV to 5 MeV were obtained by using air layers with different thicknesses between the source and detector. Alpha particle energy linearity and light output of scintillators were studied. The relative light yield of each scintillator was quantified for 1 MeV alpha particles and 1 MeV gamma rays. The relationship between light yields from alpha and gamma was also investigated. Spectrig electronics was implemented digitizing, and processing signals MPPC array. The results demonstrate valuable information for understanding the suitability between scintillator properties and detection capabilities, offering insights for applications in nuclear physics, radiation monitoring, and spectroscopy.