Light Yield Quenching and Quenching Remediation in Liquid Scintillator Detectors

TL;DR

This paper investigates how chemical additives affect light emission in liquid scintillators and introduces a method to reduce quenching effects, potentially improving detector performance.

Contribution

It demonstrates that salt formation in amine-acid systems can significantly reduce quenching in LAB-based scintillators, supported by NMR spectra.

Findings

Salt formation reduces quenching by a factor of 2

Chemical functional groups influence quenching effectiveness

Potential to improve scintillator light yield with quenching neutralization

Abstract

Quenching of light emission from an LAB based scintillator by the addition of organic amines and carboxylic acids is examined. Chemical functional groups of the quenching agents play an important role in this reduction. It is shown that "salt" formation at a 1:1 mole ratio in a mixed amine-acid system, reduces quenching by a factor of 2. Supporting NMR spectra are presented. This "quenching neutralization" has the potential to reduce the light loss incurred when metals complexed with quenching agents are loaded into organic scintillators.