ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that scintillation is a fairly common process, scintillating materials are in fact fairly rare. Practical scintillators are divided between two classes: organic phosphors and inorganic phosphors. When a photomultiplier is used in a scintillation counter, the output pulse length will normally be governed by the length of the light pulse from the scintillator, or the high frequency performance of the amplifier connected to it, rather than the timing spread in the phototube. In most cases a light guide will be used with a plastic scintillator and will be of similar refractive index, so the light will be captured within the block of scintillator material and then transmitted with little loss through the light guide. Scintillation detectors contain a relatively low concentration of scintillation centres and as a consequence very highly ionizing particles may excite all the scintillation centres locally available, giving a saturation of the output.
