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Optical Plastic Components
Offering light guides materials used to convey scintillation photons to the readout device. Key performance parameters are good optical transmission across a broad range of wavelengths and highly polished surfaces to promote total internal reflection. All light guides are custom designed to suit the particular scintillator geometry and experimental constraints.
Acrylic Light Guides key performance parameters are good optical transmission across a broad range of wavelengths and highly polished surfaces to promote total internal reflection.
Plastic light pipes often are used with plastic and liquid organic scintillators to:
- Provide a PMT mounting surface
- Guide the scintillating light to the photocathode
- Back-off the PMT where the scintillator is in a strong magnetic field
- Minimize pulse height variation
Specifications
- BC-800 UVT (UV transmitting) acrylic plastic for scintillator emission spectra in the near UV, such as NaI(Tl), BC-418, BC-420 and BC-422
- BC-802 UVA (UV absorbing) acrylic plastic general purpose, PMMA plastic for most scintillators and is the recommended light guide material for scintillators having emission spectra in the “blue” i.e. 420 nm.
Design Options
Typical light guide geometries include:
- Right Cylinders used when the light pipe diameter is the same as the scintillator diameter
- Tapered Cones are transition pieces between square-to-round or round -to-round cross-sections
- "Fish-Tail" are transition pieces from thin, rectangular cross-sections to round cross-sections
- Adiabatic provide the most uniform light transmission from the scintillator exit end to the PMT; the cross-section areas of the input and PMT faces are equal
Available in cast sheets and rods having size tolerances typical of the commercial acrylic products.
All light guides are custom designed to suit the particular scintillator geometry and experimental constraints.
Related Resources
Wavelength shifter (WLS) plastic materials absorb light at one wavelength and emit it isotropically at a longer wavelength. A portion of the re-emitted light is transmitted by total internal reflection along the WLS bar to be read out at the ends.
Specifications
- BC-480 Blue-emitting shifts from near UV (300-360 nm) to 425 nm
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BC-482A Green-emitting shifts from 420 to 500 nm
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BC-484 Green-emitting shifts from 380 to 435 nm
Design Options
Wavelength shifter bars can be made in various sizes.
Standard Cast sizes:
Standard Cast sizes:
- Right Cylinders used when the light pipe diameter is the same as the scintillator diameter
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0.5 - 1 mm thick 30 x 60 cm
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1.5 mm thick 30 x 101 cm
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2 mm thick 45 x 101 cm
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3 mm thick 63 x 101 cm
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5, 6.4, 10, 12.7, 20, 25, 38 and 50 mm thick 63 x 203 cm
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75, 100, 125, 150 mm thick 60 x 101 cm