4 Scintillator Manufacturers in 2022
This section provides overview, applications, and principles of scintillators. Also, please take a look at the list of 4 scintillator manufacturers and their company rankings.
Table of Contents
What Is a Scintillator?
A scintillator is a general term for a material that emits light when a charged particle or radiation passes through it. There are two main types of scintillators: inorganic scintillators and organic scintillators.
Inorganic scintillators are made of crystals from materials with high atomic numbers. They emit large amounts of light and have good energy resolution but are characterized by a slow response time, making them suitable for detecting gamma rays and X-rays.
Organic scintillators include plastic scintillators and liquid scintillators. They are inexpensive, lightweight, and have a fast response time, making them suitable for detecting α- and β-rays.
Scintillators are applied in various fields as scintillation detectors combined with detectors.
Uses of Scintillator
Scintillators convert radiation into light in the ultraviolet to the visible light range. This light is converted into electrical signals by photoelectron multiplier tubes and Opto-semiconductors. The data is processed to represent the radiation information in the form of images and other information.
This functionality is used in a wide range of fields, including X-ray computed tomography (X-ray CT), positron emission tomography (PET). In addition, used in other nuclear medicine fields, airport baggage inspection, food inspection, non-destructive testing of electronic components, exploration of oil and mineral resources, nuclear reactor radiation monitoring, and research applications in the fields of elementary particles, nuclear physics, and space physics.
Scintillator Principle
The principle of scintillator emission differs between inorganic and organic scintillators.
Inorganic scintillators have a crystal structure consisting of NaI (sodium iodide) and a small number of impurities such as TI (thallium).
When a charged particle or radiation passes through an inorganic scintillator, electrons in the valence band of the crystal lattice gain energy and are excited to the conduction band, where they can move freely. When the electrons in the conduction band meet the holes in the valence band, the electrons return to the valence band, and scintillation light with a wavelength corresponding to the difference in energy is generated.
When the crystal lattice contains no impurities, the gap between the valence band and conduction band (band gap) is large, and the wavelength of the generated light is short. On the other hand, when impurities are included, some of the crystal structure is changed, and new energy levels are created in the band gap. Since the excitation energy of the impurity is small, the light emitted is visible light.
Organic scintillators emit light from the excitation of a single molecule, not from a crystal lattice.
Organic molecules such as anthracene and stilbene in organic scintillators have a pi-electron structure and have multiple excited states.
At room temperature, most of the electrons are in their ground state, but when radiation passes through them, they are excited by the energy of the radiation. Most of the electrons rise to the first excited state, which has the lowest energy level among the excited states, and emit light as they transition to the ground state. This emission is called fluorescence, and the light generated by organic scintillators is mostly fluorescent.
Some electrons may gain energy from radiation and rise to the second or higher excited state. Still, they return to the first excited state by internal conversion and transition to the ground state in a very short period.
Some of the electrons excited to the first excited state undergo an intersystem transition to the spin-triplet state, emitting light over time and returning to the ground state. This luminescence is called phosphorescence. Since the spin-triplet state has a lower energy level than the first excited state, the wavelength of luminescence is longer than that of fluorescence.
Some electrons return from the spin-triplet state to the first excited state, emit fluorescence, and return to the ground state, called delayed fluorescence.
List of 4 Scintillator Manufacturers
*Including some distributors, etc.
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- Year Founded: oldest first
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Scintillator Manufacturer Ranking
*Including some distributors, etc.Ranking as of January 2023 Globally
Derivation Method| Rank | Company | Click Share |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Toshiba Materials Co., Ltd. | 100% |
Derivation Method
The ranking is calculated based on the click share within the scintillator page as of January 2023. Click share is defined as the total number of clicks for all companies during the period divided by the number of clicks for each company.Number of Employees
- Hamamatsu Photonics: 3,766
- Toshiba Materials Co., Ltd.: 529
Newly Established Company
- Toshiba Materials Co., Ltd.: 2003 (20 years ago)
- Hamamatsu Photonics: 1953 (70 years ago)
Company with a History
- Hamamatsu Photonics: 1953 (70 years ago)
- Toshiba Materials Co., Ltd.: 2003 (20 years ago)
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