Radiation hardness of plastic scintillators for the Tile Calorimeter of the ATLAS detector

The radiation damage in polyvinyl toluene based plastic scintillator EJ200 obtained from ELJEN technology was investigated. This forms part of a comparative study conducted to aid in the upgrade of the Tile Calorimeter of the ATLAS detector during which the Gap scintillators will be replaced. Samples subjected to 6 MeV proton irradiation using the tandem accelerator of iThemba LABS, were irradiated with doses of approximately 0.8 MGy, 8 MGy, 25 MGy and 80 MGy. The optical properties were investigated using transmission spectroscopy whilst structural damage was assessed using Raman spectroscopy. Findings indicate that for the dose of 0.8 MGy, no structural damage occurs but a breakdown in the light transfer between base and fluor dopants is observed. For doses of 8 MGy to 80 MGy, structural damage leads to hydrogen loss in the benzene ring of the PVT base which forms free radicals. This results in an additional absorptive component causing increased transmission loss as dose is increased.