ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION6.1 Scintillators are materials-solids, liquids, gases-that produce sparks or scintillations of light when ionizing radiation passes through them. The rst solid material to be used as a particle detector was a scintillator. It was William Crookes who in 1903 was the rst person to observe scintillations with alpha particles impinging on a ZnS screen.1 In 1910, in Rutherford’s experimental setup, alpha particles hit a zinc sul de screen and produced scintillations, which were counted with or without the help of a microscope-a very inef cient process, inaccurate and time consuming. The method was abandoned for about 30 years and was remembered again when advanced electronics made possible ampli cation of the light produced in the scintillator.
