Talk:Scintillator

Chemical structures of organic scintillators
What are the structures of organic scintillators? I can't imagine that chemical structures of every organic fluor is kept secret. Please add structures of organic fluors to improve the article. More careful reading of the article reveals some fluors (given by their generic name). Still, pasting structures would improve the article.

Apparently it has a lot to do with the signal itself. For example; if one were to able to send (timed) x-ray or magnetic capture (recon) into a pristine and heterogeneous (heart) myocardial matrix, one might receive a great deal of useful data. We have grown quite adept at placing high (proton)density devices within and without the myocardium to make it work better. Once placed, the devices become a source of scintillation to our current imaging abilities. In my opinion the scintillation degradation is incumbent upon the mass plus the atomic weight of the artifact object, whether it be an ICD or a shell fragment.

paranoid people...
paranoid people worry about the radiation from microwave ovens. scientists say "bah! microwaves can't go through the little holes!  there is no danger!" but couldn't there be a scintillator effect that would re-emit the microwaves as higher frequency waves that would go through the grating and slowlY KILL EVERYONE WITHOUT THEM KNOWING? (GOVERNMENT CONSPIRACY!!!)

Just a thought. :-)

Omegatron 21:51, Feb 19, 2004 (UTC)


 * No that will not happen. Scintillation is generally a down-conversion process, i.e. the energy of the emitted photons is lower than the energy of the absorbed photons. This is generally true for fluorescence (absorption and re-emission of UV/Visible/IR light) as well, as the excited electrons usually lose energy via thermalization. Lower energy means larger wavelength which thus will be also be blocked by the faraday cage of the microwave oven. Even if for some reason some "up-conversion" process would be occurring in the microwave oven, it's extremely unlikely (really near impossible when it comes to food and other household items) that it would be radiation with a wavelength small enough (at leas 5-10 times smaller, i.e. 5-10 times more energy), to pass through the faraday cage. Also it would not be "scintillation". Scintillation is a process where ionizing radiation (so not microwave radiation) is absorbed and then re emitted in the UV/Visible/IR range. User:DrFrankM11

---

There is a slight difference between "high energy (ionizing) electromagnetic or charged particle radiation" (like gamma rays, higher in energy than X-rays) and microwaves, which are even lower in energy than visible light or infrared. And scintillation "fluoresces photons at a characteristic Stokes-shifted (longer) wavelength" ("longer", mind, this means an even lower frequency than micro-waves...). You could as well be afraid of being killed by radio waves when sunbathing behind a grid. Enjoy your summer. ;-) David 13:44, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure I understand the point you're making..... could you restate it a bit clearer? --Deglr6328 22:00, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi there,

I've got your point. But I think the phenomenon could be RF mixing, not scintilation.

What about a Photomultiplier vs Photodiode section? At least some people are not interested in the energy of the particles, just counting. Arnero 19:53, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Question about "phonons"
When I edited the reaction in the section "Organic scintillators" to improve its appearance I left the word "phonons" unchanged, but shouldn't it be "photons?" "Phonons" is a word that has some applicability maybe, but I don't know. Fix it if it is wrong. Jmc76 (talk) 18:28, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I believe "phonons" is likely correct there. It's a transition involving molecular orbitals in a crystal. Involvement of phonons is not surprising. The photons are emitted when $$S^*$$ decays to $$S_0$$, as stated in the text.--Srleffler (talk) 02:38, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Spelling mistake
In the "Organic" section... where he has "phonons"... should that be "photons"?

Principle of operation section slightly off-topic?
Hi! When reading the article on "Scintillator" I found that under the section "Principle of operation" it rather explains how the light generated by a scintillator material is then used to make a scintillation counter or similar, but does not explain the principle of operation of the scintillator itself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.240.104.144 (talk) 10:14, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Section comparing scintillator devices with G-M devices would be a welcome and useful addition.
I think this article would benefit from a section comparing scintillators with Geiger-Mueller radiation detectors. The question of which one is more useful in practice or has better value for money often arises among laypersons interested in fiestaware, antique radium clocks, rocks and crystals, etc. collection hobbies.

For a practical example, the Radiacode-102 scintillator from Cyprus and the CQ GMC-600+ "pancake" tube GM counter from USA both cost around 400 USD. The 600+ can detect Alpha, in addition to Beta, Gamma and X-rays. Meanwhile, the R-102 can display "educated guesses" in smartphone app about which isotope(s) are emitting the measured radiation, due to spectroscopy ability inherent to crystal detectors. 84.236.41.61 (talk) 12:17, 21 September 2023 (UTC)