Sound and light from fractures in scintillators

TL;DR

This study investigates simultaneous light and sound emissions during fractures in inorganic scintillators, revealing correlations and energy conversion efficiencies relevant to particle-physics detection methods.

Contribution

It provides the first analysis of correlated mechanoluminescence and acoustic emissions in specific scintillators under mechanical stress.

Findings

Mechanoluminescence observed in ${Bi}_4{Ge}_{3}{O}_{12}$, ${CdWO}_{4}$, and ${ZnWO}_{4}$.

Correlation between light emission and acoustic emission during fracture.

At least $3 imes 10^{-5}$ of elastic energy converts to light in ${Bi}_4{Ge}_{3}{O}_{12}$.

Abstract

Prompted by intriguing events observed in certain particle-physics searches for rare events, we study light and acoustic emission simultaneously in some inorganic scintillators subject to mechanical stress. We observe mechanoluminescence in ${Bi}_4{Ge}_{3}{O}_{12}$, ${CdWO}_{4}$ and ${ZnWO}_{4}$, in various mechanical configurations at room temperature and ambient pressure. We analyze how the light emission is correlated to acoustic emission during fracture. For ${Bi}_4{Ge}_{3}{O}_{12}$, we set a lower bound on the energy of the emitted light, and deduce that the fraction of elastic energy converted to light is at least $3 \times 10^{-5}$.