Characterization of scintillators for ion detection dagnostics in nuclear fusion reactors

Abstract

Abstract Scintillator materials are used for ion detection diagnostics in nuclear fusion devices. These diagnostics obtain information from the plasma in a fusion device, for example, in a tokamak. Scintillators working principle is based on the emission of visible light pho- tons by a scintillation material when irradiated with ions. As the currently used material, known as TG-Green, is not commercially available anymore, a search of scintillation ma- terials is made. The Tandem accelerator at ‘Centro Nacional de Aceleradores’ (CNA) is used to characterize the scintillation materials when irradiated with ions. Furthermore, a deposition technique is developed in order to create scintillator screens for their char- acterization, and for their use in different ion diagnostics. The present work proves the sedimentation technique is appropriate for the deposition of scintillators for ion diagnos- tics in fusion devices. Even though the literature showed other scintillators as optimal candidates, the experimental results have shown that, in terms of efficiency, the material TG-Green presents the highest absolute values compared with the analyzed materials.