Molecular structure, electric property, and scintillation and quenching of liquid scintillators

Abstract

Liquid scintillators are widely used in particle and nuclear physics. Understanding the scintillation and quenching mechanisms is a fundamental issue in designing a high-light-yield liquid scintillator. In this work, the basic scintillation process for two-component liquid scintillators is discussed, highlighting the processes of excitation, ionization, and anion-cation recombination. A molecule's polar group, polarization characteristics, and the corresponding material's dielectric constant are found to be correlated with a liquid scintillator's scintillation efficiency. Polar groups and high relative dielectric constant (permittivity) can cause quenching and should be avoided. The tellurium loading scheme in the liquid scintillator of the SNO+ experiment, TeBD, is discussed. The hydroxyl groups introduce polar structures in the TeBD, and for the first time, the relative dielectric constant of TeBD is measured to be $16\pm1$. These discussions explain part of the quenching of the TeBD liquid scintillator.