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Scintillating Fiber
A variety of plastic scintillating, wavelength-shifting and light-transmitting fibers are produced for research and industry. Scintillating fibers consist of a polystyrene-based core and a PMMA cladding. The scintillating core contains a combination of fluorescent dopants selected to produce the desired scintillation, optical and radiation-resistance characteristics. Multi-clad fibers have a second layer of cladding that has an even lower refractive index and, thus, permits total internal reflection at a second boundary. The additional photons guided by multi-clad fibers increase the output signal up to 60% over conventional single-clad fibers.
Current sizes range from 0.25 mm to 5 mm square or round cross-sections and available in canes, spools, ribbons, and arrays. Fibers > 2mm are available only in cane form to prevent the fiber from retaining the shape of the spool.
Scintillating fibers are well-suited for such applications as Industrial gauging, Calorimeters, Real-time imaging systems.
Features/Benefits
Flexibility to conform to the surface shape, yielding geometries superior to those of other types of detectors. Examples are detectors for monitoring pipes or barrels.
Specifications
| Fiber Type | Emission Color | Emission Peak, nm | Decay Time, ns | # of Photons per MeV** | Characteristics/ Applications | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BCF-10 | blue | 432 | 2.7 | ~8000 | General purpose; optimized for diameters >250μm | |
| BCF-12 | blue | 435 | 3.2 | ~8000 | Improved transmission for use in long lengths | |
| BCF-20 | green | 492 | 2.7 | ~8000 | Fast green scintillator | |
| BCF-60 | green | 530 | 7 | ~7100 | 3HF formulation for radiation hardness | |
| BCF-91A | green | 494 | 12 | n/a | Shifts blue to green | |
| BCF-92 | green | 492 | 2.7 | n/a | Fast blue to green shifter | |
| BCF-98 | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | Clear waveguide | |
| ** For Minimum Ionizing Particle (MIP), corrected for PMT sensitivity | ||||||