PSD Plastic Scintillator Quenching Data

Relative light yield in MeVee as a function of proton recoil energy from 0.17 to 9.87 MeV for PSD-capable plastic scintillators commercialized by Eljen Technology (EJ-299-33, EJ-299-34, EJ-276 and EJ-276D). These PSD-capable plastics contain a high concentration of primary dye [Zaitseva2012NIMA668], and the measured ionization quenching significantly differs from that of common commercial PVT-based fast plastic scintillators [Laplace2020JINST15]. Scintillators with the EJ-299 prefix represent Eljen Technology’s developmental formulations. EJ-276 was the first production-ready formulation, which was later replaced by EJ-276D which demonstrates a longer shelf life.

The discrepancy between the different reported proton light yield measurements can be explained in part by differences in the integration lengths used to measure the light output [Brown2018JourApplPhys124, Laplace2020NIMA959], bias associated with characterization of the Compton edge used for light output calibration [Dietze1982NIMA193], and bias associated with the edge characterization method used by some authors [Weldon2020NIMA953]. Most often ignored, non-proportionality of the electron light yield [Payne2011IEEE58, Swiderski2012JINST7] may also introduce further biases in calibration/conversion to the MeVee light unit.