Fiber-optic radiation sensor for detection of tritium

The objective of this study is to develop the radiation sensor, which is composed of a scintillator, an optical fiber bundle and a light measuring device to detect the tritium in real-time. In this study, we have fabricated fiber-optic radiation sensors using inorganic scintillators and plastic optical fiber bundles. Each scintillator interacts with electron or beta ray and generates 455-550 nm wavelength of scintillation photons. An optical fiber bundle is usually made of plastic or glass, which is used to guide the light signal from a scintillating probe to light measuring device. For the purpose of selecting the best scintillator with a high efficiency, fiber-optic sensors manufactured using three kinds of inorganic scintillator such as Gd2O2S:Tb, Y3Al5O12:Ce and Csl:Tl, and they are tested with a metal hydride type of tritium source. In addition, the scintillation photons are measured as a function of distance between a fiber-optic sensor and source. Finally, we have measured the amounts of scintillation photon with different activities of tritium source and compared the measured results with those obtained using a surface activity monitor. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.