Introduction to scintillators

This video looks at scintillators, materials that emit light when exposed to ionizing radiation. We expose a variety of common (and not-so-common) scintillators to an intense Cs-137 source and look at the light that comes out. Scintillators can be characterized in many ways, but some of the most important properties include light intensity, spectrum (or color), and time response. Different properties are important for different applications. A few essential applications are discussed. Scintillators are truly remarkable and remain an important research frontier in nuclear engineering.

What's your favorite scintillator? Do you have questions or want to share something additional? Feel free to engage in the comments.

[hullinstruments]

I had to suppress my urge to squeal like a schoolgirl when I saw this video appear in my feed a few minutes ago. Just finished up a few custom scintillation detectors last week, I’ve learned so much from your channel already, can’t wait to hear your take on this!

[abdelayr]

4:00 we can see the cerenkov effect on the camera !

[fjs]

Wow, you can see the gamma rays slamming in to the CMOS sensor on the camera causing a good amount of pixelating noise.. that's a pretty hot source for sure! thanks Carl for sharing

[chemistryscuriosities]

I have a Radiacode 101 gamma spectroscopy and scintillation detector. It utilizes a CsI(Tl) crystal with a SiPM. It has lousy resolution but it is a fairly capable spectrometer regardless. I have some great Reference spectra for my library that I have collected. Great video! Lots of great information. Thank you Carl for your work.

[Gigabecquerel]

What a great image!
I love how you can see slight snow on the camera right next to the source, and yet the final picture turned out pretty clean.
This really makes me appreciate my scintillation crystals, and the gamma spectrometer they make up.

Thank you for the great image and reminder about the nuclear science week!

[ahtistedatomic]

Thank you for this great video, there are hardly any videos about scintillators around the internet, I learned a lot from this one.

[hightechstuff]

"The Thing" Excellent scientific terminology. LOL!
Great video Carl! Looking forward to your future videos, always a treat!

[williamcorcoran]

Carl, I love your videos. You really have a great narration voice and you are an excellent educator. Thank you for all of your efforts. And gosh darn it, be careful!

[chalkchalkson]

This was really cool to see! I think in the last year I read "LYSO" hundreds of times and I knew its peak emission wavelength, but actually seeing what it looks like (or would look like in a very unhealthy environment) is a completely different thing!

[cracktower]

💕 Carl, Your the Only guy in town, that has a ton of giant Lead Blocks, kicking around your house and office! Says a lot about how good you are in this field. 😃

[shannonpincombe]

I love your video and the scintillator photo. Your explanation of the materials was excellent and I bet your students really get a kick out of your classes since you have a great way of expalining rhe practicle uses for each of the scintillators you used. I wish we could catch the 'flash moment' you referred to for each of the materials and tell their reaction times. Great footage and thank you.

[chromatogiraffery]

Always a pleasant surprise to see a new video from you! Merry nuclear science week!

[randyhavener]

Thanks Carl. It's always to see new content from you!! Keep up the Great Education!!!

[votedthewave]

Always wonderful to see new videos from you! Exceptional quality of information and demonstration as always. Cheers!

[Qwerty]

Superb video Carl. Thank you for making and sharing it.

[roentgen]

Do a tour of all the sources you've got

[KarbineKyle]

I love your work, Carl! I saw that LYSO scintillator, and I knew exactly what it was! It is slightly radioactive (Lu-176), and is a nice low-moderate gamma energy calibration source (88 keV, 202 keV, 307 keV), with high branching intensities. I use NaI:Tl and PRA, with a GammaSpectacular MCA. It works well! CeBr or SrI:Eu have about twice as better resolution, but they're expensive! HPGe is the best, and I'd love to get my hands on one, but they're crazy expensive! Anyways, thank you for sharing your amazing work! Thank you so much!

[michaelwall]

Excellent demonstration and explanation, Carl! Love the use of the cheap grabbers. :)

[podgemcgrath]

Awesome video! I do a lot of testing with scintillators for a company that makes compact high resolution RIIDs and PRDs with CsI:Tl (7% resolution) and CLLBC (sub 4% resolution) scintillators. Love your videos, very informative.

[SciHeartJourney]

This was excellent. Thank you for this video.
I once interviewed for a job at UCLA working on a project looking for dark matter using fiber optic scintillators. They're looking for WIMPS as a dark matter possibly. I didn't get the job, but I think it would have been a lot of fun.