Understanding Scintillation Detectors for Gamma Ray Simulation

[Silviu]

Hello! I am working on the simulation of a detector for gamma rays. I need to simulate the response time of the crystal but I am not sure I understand what is that. Does it means that any crystal has a limit on the number of photons it can see at once?

 

[mfb]

Every crystal will need some time before it starts emitting enough scintillation light for detection.

 

[gleem]

The response time for a device is usually taken as the time to fully develop its signal. The time it takes for a photon to traverse a crystal is a fraction of a nanosecond. However the time it takes for the energy deposited in the crystal to manifest itself as a light pulse is substantially longer and is related to decay times of the types of crystal excitations. These excitation decay times can be fast i.e., 10^-8 sec for luminescence or slow for phosphorescence 10^-6 sec or longer. For solid scintillators it is a mixture.

You stated you are working on a simulation for a scintillation detector which includes a crystal and a photomulitpier tube. Depending the PMT used it could have a significant affect on the total response time of the detector.