Preliminary Studies of Perovskite-Loaded Plastic Scintillator Prototypes for Radioactive Strontium Detection

Abstract

Functional plastic scintillators have attracted much attention for their usefulness in on-site monitoring and detection in environments. In this study, we elucidated a highly reliable and functional plastic scintillator for detection of radioactive strontium, which means a potent perovskite-loaded polymeric scintillation material based on epoxy and 2,5-diphenyloxazole (PPO). Moreover, Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) simulation was performed to optimize the thickness of a plastic scintillator for efficient strontium detection. A thickness of 2 mm was found to be the optimum thickness for strontium beta-ray detection. A newly developed plastic scintillator with 430 nm emission from perovskite loading could trigger scintillation enhancement employing potential indication of perovskite energy transfer into a photomultiplier (PMT) detector. Furthermore, the response to beta-ray emitter of 90Sr was compared to commercial scintillator of BC-400 by exhibiting detection efficiency in the energy spectrum with a fabricated perovskite-loaded plastic scintillator. We believe that this suggested functional plastic scintillator could be employed as a radiation detector for strontium detection in a wide range of applications including decommissioning sites in nuclear facilities, nuclear security and monitoring, nonproliferation, and safeguards.