Use of polyethylene naphthalate as a self-vetoing structural material

Understand

The discovery of scintillation in the blue regime from polyethylene naphthalate (PEN), a commonly used high-performance industrial polyester plastic, has sparked considerable interest from the physics community as a new type of plastic scintillator material.

• This observation in addition to its good mechanical and radiopurity properties makes PEN an attractive candidate as an active structure scintillator for low-background physics experiments.
• This paper reports on investigations of its potential in terms of production tests of custom made tiles and various scintillation light output measurements.
• These investigations substantiate the high potential of usage of PEN in low-background experiments.