Characterization of a radiation detector based on opaque water-based liquid scintillator

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel opaque water-based liquid scintillator radiation detector capable of precise event localization and spectroscopy, demonstrated through a 1-liter prototype with effective position reconstruction and response to gamma rays.

Contribution

The paper presents the design, construction, and evaluation of a new opaque water-based scintillator detector with topological reconstruction capabilities, a novel approach in radiation detection.

Findings

Mean position reconstruction error of 4.4 mm at 1.6 MeV

Effective gamma-ray energy response modeling

Prototype demonstrates combined spectroscopy and event localization

Abstract

We present the characterization of a novel radiation detector based on an opaque water-based liquid scintillator. Opaque scintillators, also known as LiquidO, are made to be highly scattering, such that the scintillation light is effectively confined, and read out through wavelength-shifting fibers. The 1-liter, 32-channel prototype demonstrates the capability for both spectroscopy and topological reconstruction of point-like events. The design, construction, and evaluation of the detector are described, including modeling of the scintillation liquid optical properties and the detector's response to gamma rays of several energies. A mean position reconstruction error of 4.4 mm for 1.6 MeV-equivalent events and 7.4 mm for 0.8 MeV-equivalent events is demonstrated using a simple reconstruction approach analogous to center-of-mass.