Measurement of scintillation light quenching for protons in rare-earth inorganic scintillators

Rare-earth inorganic scintillators are often used in a variety of applications as radiation detectors in fields such as medical imaging, accelerator diagnostics, and space science. The response of these scintillator detectors is commonly characterized using isotropic gamma-ray sources. However, the gamma-ray induced response differs from the response produced by incident ions, which is due to quenching effects; the non-proportional response of scintillators from the detection of gammas vs the detection of ions. Using three types of inorganic scintillators, Y₂SiO₅(YSO:Ce), Y₃Al₅O₁₂(YAG:Ce), and Gd₃Al₂Ga₃O₁₂ (GAGG:Ce), we measured the light output from protons within an energy range of 1-25 MeV using a 3 MV tandem accelerator and two reactions: Au(p,p)Au and ³He(d,p)⁴He. From this data, we extract the Birks parameters to understand the non-proportionality effect associated with these materials as a function systematics effects, including temperature and dopant concentration. Preliminary results of quenching and temperature and dopant effects on quenching will be presented.