Measurement of ionization quenching in plastic scintillators

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel experimental method to precisely measure and compare ionization quenching models in plastic scintillators, providing empirical data crucial for accurate radiation energy measurements.

Contribution

It presents a new technique for granular measurement of ionization quenching and offers the first model-independent empirical data on quenching dependence.

Findings

Determined parameters for four quenching models using proton energies 30-100 MeV.

Compared models using Bayesian analysis to identify the most accurate.

Provided the first empirical, model-independent measurement of quenching dependence.

Abstract

Plastic scintillators are widely used in high-energy and medical physics, often for measuring the energy of ionizing radiation. Their main disadvantage is their non-linear response to highly ionizing radiation, called ionization quenching. This nonlinearity must be modeled and corrected for in applications where an accurate energy measurement is required. We present a new experimental technique to granularly measure the dependence of quenching on energy-deposition density. Based on this method, we determine the parameters for four commonly used quenching models for two commonly used plastic scintillators using protons with energies of 30 MeV to 100 MeV; and compare the models using a Bayesian approach. We also report the first model-independent measurement of the dependence of ionization quenching on energy-deposition density, providing a purely empirical view into quenching.