Nonlinear characteristics of several scintillators studied by 70 MeV electron pulse excitation

Scintillators form the chief device for radiation detection, and the study of their characteristics and their related theories is very significant. Specifically, the nonlinear behavior of scintillators under high excitation density has been closely studied owing to its direct influence on the measurements of radiation. We propose a new method to calibrate the nonlinearity of scintillators based on the electron pulse generated by a linear electron accelerator. The nonlinear light yield of several commonly used scintillators versus fluence of 70 MeV electrons in a 10 ps pulse has been measured by adjusting the charge of electron pulses, and the deposition energy threshold is also simulated and calculated. The results show that the deposition energy threshold for the occurrence of 5% nonlinearity is highest for two types of oxide scintillators, viz. LSO and PbWO₄, followed by fluoride scintillators, viz. BaF₂ and CeF₃, and the threshold for a plastic scintillator EJ232 is lowest.