What is meant by scintillator?
A scintillator is a material that exhibits scintillation, the property of luminescence, when excited by ionizing radiation. Luminescent materials, when struck by an incoming particle, absorb its energy and scintillate (i.e. re-emit the absorbed energy in the form of light).
What does a scintillator measure?
A scintillation counter is an instrument for detecting and measuring ionizing radiation by using the excitation effect of incident radiation on a scintillating material, and detecting the resultant light pulses.
What is scintillation in radiology?
The scintillator is the component of a gamma camera which receives the gamma rays emitted from a radionuclide in a nuclear medicine scan and converts it to visible light photons. It is located just behind the collimator device.
What causes scintillation?
Scintillation is caused by small-scale (tens of meters to tens of km) structure in the ionospheric electron density along the signal path and is the result of interference of refracted and/or diffracted (scattered) waves.
Where is scintillation counter used?
Scintillation Counters are widely used in radioactive contamination, radiation survey meters, radiometric assay, nuclear plant safety, and medical imaging, that are used to measure radiation.
What does the scintillator do in a gamma camera?
What are scintillation materials?
What Are Scintillation Materials? Scintillators are materials that absorb energetic radiation such as gamma rays, X-rays, or neutrons and convert that energy into short bursts of visible photons. These photons are then converted into electrical pulses by photo-detectors.
What makes a good scintillation crystal?
The perfect scintillator should be dense, bright and fast. Dense means high density and high atomic number ≳ 5 g/cm3, which increases the probability of a gamma-ray interaction. The denser the scintillator, the more efficient it is at stopping gamma rays.