Energy response and pulse shape discrimination studies of a 3-inch liquid scintillator

Liquid organic scintillators have a niche in pulse shape discrimination (PSD) studies of different types of radiation e.g. alpha, beta, gamma, neutron, etc. The present work aims to characterize BC501A Liquid Scintillation Detector in terms of energy calibration and pulse shape discrimination. The energy calibration was done using gamma-gamma (7-7) coincidence technique. This technique is utilized for reducing the ambiguity in determining the bias levels using the exact position of the Compton edge. Three gamma sources, namely, Cs-137, Na-22, Co-60 were used in the present study. A 4-channel digital acquisition system DGF PIXIE-4 (supplied by XIA LLC) was used for the acquisition of spectrum. Furthermore, n-7 PSD employing a Cf-252 neutron source was carried out and a zero crossing time difference of 124 ns was observed. Using 7- 7 coincidence technique, we were able to do energy calibration for BC501A liquid scintillator for gamma rays, which otherwise is difficult to achieve. Copyright (C) 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.