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. 2019 Sep 4;19(18):3828.
doi: 10.3390/s19183828.

Evaluation of Scintillator Detection Materials for Application within Airborne Environmental Radiation Monitoring

Matthew Lowdon  1 , Peter G Martin  2 , M W J Hubbard  3 , M P Taggart  3 , Dean T Connor  1 , Yannick Verbelen  1 , P J Sellin  3 , Thomas B Scott  1
Affiliations

Evaluation of Scintillator Detection Materials for Application within Airborne Environmental Radiation Monitoring

Matthew Lowdon et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

In response to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident, there has occurred the unabated growth in the number of airborne platforms developed to perform radiation mapping-each utilising various designs of a low-altitude uncrewed aerial vehicle. Alongside the associated advancements in the airborne system transporting the radiation detection payload, from the earliest radiological analyses performed using gas-filled Geiger-Muller tube detectors, modern radiation detection and mapping platforms are now based near-exclusively on solid-state scintillator detectors. With numerous varieties of such light-emitting crystalline materials now in existence, this combined desk and computational modelling study sought to evaluate the best-available detector material compatible with the requirements for low-altitude autonomous radiation detection, localisation and subsequent high spatial-resolution mapping of both naturally occurring and anthropogenically-derived radionuclides. The ideal geometry of such detector materials is also evaluated. While NaI and CsI (both elementally doped) are (and will likely remain) the mainstays of radiation detection, LaBr3 scintillation detectors were determined to possess not only a greater sensitivity to incident gamma-ray radiation, but also a far superior spectral (energy) resolution over existing and other potentially deployable detector materials. Combined with their current competitive cost, an array of three such composition cylindrical detectors were determined to provide the best means of detecting and discriminating the various incident gamma-rays.

Keywords: NORM; UAV; contamination; mapping; nuclear; radiation; scintillators.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Source-detector geometry used in GEANT4 simulations depicting the varying detector volumes with constant source separation.
Figure 2
Figure 2
GEANT4 simulated CsI(Na) detector response for varying thicknesses when exposed to; (a) 137Cs point source; (b) 232Th point source; (c) 238U point source.
Figure 3
Figure 3
CsI(Na) detector response in “air” and “vacuum” environments.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Optical emission characteristics of various scintillation materials; (a) absolute photon yield against the wavelength of peak emission; (b) effective total optical yield, accounting for the quantum efficiency of the light detector, against the wavelength of maximum emission.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Comparison of the gamma-ray spectra obtained from various detector materials of identical volume when exposed to a 232Th point source.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Comparison of the gamma-ray spectra obtained from various detector materials of identical volume when exposed to a 238U point source.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Schematics for; (a) single CsI(Na) detector setup; (b) triple CsI(Na) detector setup.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Gamma spectra obtained using a single and triple CsI(Na) detector setup for: (a) 232Th point source; (b) 238U point source.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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