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IRE TRANSACTIONS ON NUCLEAR SCIENCE

ANTHRACENE
,,..LIGHT
PIPE
RADIOACTIVE
SPECIMEN
-GLASS MOUNT
Fig. 9-Counting geometry for 3-y coincidence
polarized nuclei.
experiments with
4C
f> 3u
L2
2
25
0
o20
z
.4
5
0
0.2 03 0.4 015 a6 07 0.8 09 1.0
YC
Fig. 10-Original electron emission angle necessary for central
detection in 3-y coincidence experiments.
Fig. 11--sy coincidence
apparatus.
dences between electrons above a certain energy and the
desired gamma rays striking each pair of gamma counters
are recorded, as well as all individual counting rates. The
fifth gamma counter is used to determine the degree of
nuclear polarization as before. As can be seen from the
photograph, the geometry is rather tight, so that correc-
tions for angular resolution must be made.
Further experiments with this type of apparatus are
in progress, and some changes in technique are being
planned. In particular, use of some of the new photo-
multipliers which can be operated at low temperatures
should materially reduce heat leaks which are troublesome
with the presently used light pipe.
Applications of Liquid Scintillation Counters*
F. NEWTON HAYESt
Summary-The liquid scintillator, in just a few years of de-
velopment, has shown itself to be an extremely versatile chemical
system for radiation detection. Its evolution has been characterized
by penetration into almost every phase of experimental science.
A survey of the most notable applications of liquid scintillation
counting is presented.
*
Manuscript received by the PGNS, February 8, 1958. This
work was performed under the auspices of the U. S. Atomic Energy
Commission.
t Los Alamos Sci.
Lab., University of
California, Los Alamos,
N. M.
OWARD the end of August, 1957, at Northwestern
University, Evanston, Ill., a three-day conference on
liquid scintillation counting was held.' There were
sessions on physics and chemistry of the liquid scintillator,
on instrumentation for liquid scintillation counters, and
on applications of liquid scintillation counting. Much of
I
"Proceedings of the Northwestern University Conference on
Liquid Scintillation Counting," to be published by Pergamon
Press Ltd., London, Eng.
351
45
166
December

Hayes: Applications of Liquid Scintillation Counters
the information in this paper has been drawn from the
Proceedings of this conference.
A liquid scintillator2 is usually a three-component
system composed of solvent, primary solute, and secondary
solute. An energy transfer sequence proceeds from solvent
to primary solute, at which point the process has realized
about 3 per cent energy efficiency, and energy states are
attained which allow emission in the 350 to 400 m,u range.
However, photon emission is delayed until energy is
transferred to the secondary solute. The quantum effi-
ciency of this last step in the transfer is about 1, and the
photon emission is mostly in the range 420 to 480
m,u.3
Such a spectrum of photons has considerable mean-free-
path in the scintillator and has a high matching factor to
the sensitivity spectrum of a photomultiplier cathode.
Toluene is often an excellent choice as a solvent4
because it is efficient, cheap, and
commercially available
in requisite purity. In situations where its fire hazard
and toxicity become important considerations, the less
volatile solvents triethylbenzene or
isopropylbiphenyl5
may be used. The solvent combination of p-dioxane
and naphthalene is very useful6 when water must be
dissolved in the liquid scintillator.
The most popular primary solutes7 are p-terphenyl,
2,5-diphenyloxazole (often referred to as PPO) and
2-(4-biphenylyl)-5-phenyl-1, 3, 4-oxadiazole (sometimes
called PBD).
Today's most useful secondary solutess are 2,5-p-phenyl-
ene-bis(5-phenyloxazole) (almost always referred to as
POPOP) and 9,10-diphenylanthracene.
For the last five years the most popular liquid scintillator
has been composed of toluene, p-terphenyl, and a secondary
solute. There are no unequivocal optima in solute con-
centrations9 where economy is the natural antagonist of
performance. A solution of 5
g/1 p-terphenyl and 0.5 g/1
POPOP in toluene is now considered to be a superior liquid
scintillator over the million-fold range in volume found
in liquid scintillation detectors. This solution yields about
8 photons, air-saturated, or 10 photons, inert-gas saturated,
per kev deposited by an exciting particle at minimum
2
F. N. Hayes, "Liquid scintillators: attributes and applications,"
Intern. J. Appl. Radiation and Isotopes, vol. 1, pp. 46-56; July, 1956.
3
D. G. Ott, F. N. Hayes, E. Hansbury, and V. N. Kerr, "Liquid
scintillators. V. Adsorption and fluorescence spectra of 2,5-diaryloxa-
zoles and related compounds," Am. Chem. Soc., vol. 79, pp. 5448-
5454; October, 1957.
4 F. N. Hayes, B. S. Rogers, and P. C. Sanders, "Importance of
solvent in liquid scintillators," Nucleonics, vol. 13, pp. 46-48;
January, 1955.
5
W. L. Buck and R. K. Swank, "Use of isopropylbiphenyl as
solvent in liquid scintillators," Rev. Sci. Instr., vol. 29, p. 252;
March, 1958.
6 W. H. Langham, W. J. Eversole, F. N. Hayes, and T. T.
Trujillo, "Assay of tritium activity in body fluids with use of a liquid
scintillation system," J. Lab. Clin. Med., vol. 47, pp. 819-825;
May,
1956.-
7F. N. Hayes, D. G. Ott, V. N. Kerr, and B. S. Rogers, "Pulse
height comparison of primary solutes," Nucleonics, vol. 13, pp.
38-41; December, 1955.
8 F. N. Hayes, D. G. Ott, and V. N. Kerr, "Pulse-height com-
parison of secondary solutes," Nuicleonics, vol. 14, pp. 42-45;
January, 1956.
D. G. Ott, see footnote 1.
ionization. A
liquid scintillator responds to the densely
ionizing 5-mev alpha particle as though it were a 0.5-mev
electron.
The
liquid scintillator is a member of the
organic
scintillator
family which also includes
crystals, plastics
and
gels. It has certain useful properties which
clearly
differentiate it from its organic relatives, as well as from
inorganic-crystal and noble-gas scintillators. These are:
low cost, ease of preparation, high transparency, short
decay time, absence of self-dictated size
limitation, and
ease of alteration.
The 5
g/1 p-terphenyl and 0.5 g/1 POPOP solution in
toluene has a materials cost of about $2.80/1., and its
preparation time is the short time required through
heating and/or stirring to dissolve the solutes in the
solvent. This solution has an average mean-free-path for
its emitted light of the order of 10 meters, and its decay
time is <3 X 10-9 second.'0 The size of a liquid scintilla-
tion detector is limited by the dimensions of the container.
The ease with which liquids may dissolve substances
imparts to the liquid scintillator the ability not olnly to
be the detector but also to contain the source of radio-
activity in a liquid scintillation counter.
Liquid scintillation counters may be classified in
many ways such as source-to-detector geometry, size,
use, etc. By the first method of analysis, there are counters
with geometries similar to situations with a sodium iodide
crystal: <<2r, the 27r approximation and the 47r approxi-
mation. But the crystal analogy disappears with the
further 4r geometries available to the liquid in the
dispersed source-to-detector systems which are solution
and suspension.
The generic name which applies to all three cases, akin
to sodium iodide
counting, is the large-volume external-
sample counter. The large volume does not follow from
the geometry alone but also from the considerations that
the use of external samples usually involves gamma
detection, that the gamma path in a liquid scintillator
must be at least a few inches for reasonable counting
efficiency, and that the external sample is probably large
or else a sodium iodide counter would be used.
The generic name for the dispersed source-to-detector
system is the small-volume internal-sample counter. The
small volume results from the usual application of this
type of counting to short-range ionizing particles and the
rare need to count a large sample.
For a survey of liquid scintillation
counters, which once
were or are now in use, it is
convenient, after the discussion
in the previous section, to utilize yet another system of
classification which is volume. The scintillator volumes
from 0.5 cm3 to 100 cm3 all have to do with small-volume
internal-sample
counting,
and the volumes from 0.03 m'
to 1.8 m3 are involved in large-volume external-sample
counting.
10 R. K. Swank and W. L. Buck, "Decay times of some organic
scintillators," Rev. Sci. Instr., vol. 26, pp. 15-16; January, 1955.
1958
167

IRE TRANSACTIONS ON NUCLEAR SCIENCE
SMALL-VOLUME INTERNAL-SAMPLE COUNTING
Since 1951," small-volume liquid scintillation counters
have been used for beta-counting of isotopically labeled
organic compounds found especially in biological, chemical,
and industrial research. Historically, the simplest case in
the chemistry of this detector was developed first.
Gaseous,"2 "3 liquid and solid compounds soluble in toluene
were dissolved directly in the liquid scintillator and,
for C'4 and higher energy beta emitters, counting effi-
ciencies from 50 to 100 per cent were obtained. This
represented an improvement over Geiger and ionization
chamber measurements in that sample processing was
kept to a minimum, thereby allowing considerable saving
in the over-all assay time. Such considerations as correc-
tions for self-absorption and geometry disappeared since
the dissolution of the sample makes it infinitely thin
throughout the detector and gives it a 47r geometry.
Especially for liquid and solid samples, the liquid scin-
tillation method offers a considerable chance for high
sensitivity. Guinn' has made comparisons with thin-
window Geiger counting of minimum specific activity
detectable to I10 per cent standard deviation in 30-
minute sample counting time and 30-minute background
counting time. He finds that the liquid scintillation
counter may yield higher concentration sensitivity by the
following factors: 7,800 for H3, 1,000 for C'4, 870 for S33,
156 for Cl36, and 60 for p32. Guinn quotes counting ef-
ficiencies of 25 per cent for H3, 75 per cent for C14, and
100 per cent for p32.
Many workers have reported successful routine analyses
of binary and ternary mixtures of beta-emitting isotopes.
This takes advantage of the energy dependence of light
output from a liquid scintillator. Some examples are
H3-C14, H3-Na22, and H3_C'4_p32.
For compounds insoluble in toluene, two variants in
the scintillator system have been developed. The first is
effecting a solution of the sample without seriously
impairing the scintillating action of the solution, and the
second is dispersal of the insoluble sample in a finely
divided state throughout the scintillator. The first method
can be accomplished by use of the water-miscible solvent
systems, p-dioxane
and naphthalene
or toluene and
ethanol, or by chemical treatment of the sample to make
it soluble in toluene.14"5 The second method was first
tried with no suspending agent'6
and then with agents
11 M. S. Raben and N. Bloembergen,
'"Determination
of radio-
activity by solution in a liquid scintillator," Science,
vol. 114, pp.
363-364; October, 1951.
12 B. N. Audric and J. V. P. Long, "Use of dissolved acetylene
in liquid scintillation counters for the measurement of carbon-14 of
low specific activity," Nature, vol. 173, pp. 992-993; May,
1954.
13
G. W. Barendsen, "Radiocarbon dating
with liquid CO2
as
diluent in a scintillation solution,"
Rev. Sci. Instr.,
vol. 28, pp.
430-432; June, 1957.
N. 'S. Radin, see footnote 1.
1"
J. M. Passman, N. S. Radin, and J. A. D. Cooper, "Liquid
scintillation technique for measuring
carbon-14-dioxide activity,"
Anal. Chem., vol. 28, pp. 484-486; April, 1956.
18 F. N. Hayes, B. S. Rogers, and W. H. Langham, "Counting
suspensions
in liquid scintillators," Nucleonics, vol. 14, pp. 48-51;
March, 1956.
which yield rigid gels17 or thixotropic solutions."'8'9 A
very satisfactory new suspension procedure 20 is the use
of a 25 per cent solution of polystyrene in a toluene-
solvent liquid scintillator. This gives a transparent solution
viscous enough to support suspended matter during
reasonable counting times but fluid enough to allow
further addition after the original counting period of a
substance which can serve as an internal standard for
efficiency calibration. The specific application of this
procedure has involved samples of 10 g of ashed and
powdered bone in 15 ml of the viscous scintillator from
which bone sample assays as low as 10 Sr90 d/min/g can
be determined.
Quenching2" of the scintillation process and absorption
of the emitted light may be corrected for, in homogeneous
systems, by use of soluble internal standards.2"22
Electronics for small-volume internal-sample liquid
scintillation counting has been distinguished by having
either one photomultiplier in a single channel circuit2326
or two photomultipliers in coincidence.27'28 The com-
plexity of the coincidence-type circuitry is required, with
the present state of photomultiplier development, for
counting applications with low-energy beta emitters
wherein great sensitivity is required. That Pringle29'30
has accomplished single channel counting of natural-C'4
for dating of archaeological specimens as old as 38,500
years with i9 per cent precision, is a tribute to his
complete coordination of optimization in effectiveness of
shielding, elimination of electrical noise, selection of a
photomultiplier with a low noise to gain ratio, and use of
a scintillator system with high photon yield.
Nir' has reported on liquid scintillation counting of
natural tritium and its applications to hydrology and
1'
B. L. Funt and A. Hetherington, "Suspension counting of
carbon-14 in scintillating gels," Science,
vol.
125, pp. 986-987; May,
1957.
18
S. Helf, see footnote 1.
1'
C. C. White and S. Helf, "Suspension counting in scintillating
gels," Nucleonics, vol. 14, pp. 46-49; October, 1956.
20
H. Foreman, see footnote 1.
21
V. N. Kerr, F. N. Hayes, and D. G. Ott, "Liquid scintillators.
III. The quenching of liquid-scintillator solutions by organic com-
pounds," Intern. J. Appl. Radiation and ISotopes, vol. 1, pp. 284-
288; January, 1957.
22
D. L. Williams, F. N. Hayes, R. J. Kandel, and W. H. Rogers,
"Preparation of C14 standard for liquid scintillation counters,"
Nucleonics, vol. 14, pp. 62-64; January, 1956.
23
B. Gordon and T. S. Hodgson, see footnote 1.
24
E. C. Farmer and I. A. Berstein, "Determination of specific
activities of C'4-labeled organic compounds with a water-soluble
liquid scintillator," Science, vol. 115, pp. 460-461; April, 1952.
25
D. J. Rosenthal and H. 0. Anger, "Liquid scintillation count-
ing of tritium and C"4-labeled compounds," Rev. Sci. Instr., vol. 25,
pp. 670-674; July, 1954.
26
J. C. Roucayrol and E. Oberhausen, "Measurement of activity
of compounds traced with low-energy beta emitters," Science, vol.
122, pp. 201-202; July, 1955.
27
R. D. Hiebert and R. J. Watts, "Fast-coincidence circuit for
H3 and C'4 measurements," Nucleonics, vol. 11, pp. 38-41; Decem-
ber, 1953.
28
F. N. Hayes and D. G. Ott, Los Alamos Doc., LA-2095; 1957.
29
R. W. Pringle, W. Turchinetz, and B. L. Funt, "Liquid scintil-
lation techniques for radiocarbon dating," Rev. Sci. Instr., vol. 26,
pp. 859-865- September,
1955.
B
.Fn,adS .Dnlk 30
R. W. Pringle, W. Turchinetz,
B. L. Funt, and S. S. Danyluk,
"Radiocarbon age estimates obtained by an improved liquid scintil-
lation technique," Science, vol. 125, pp. 69-70; January, 1957.
168 December

Hayes: Applications of Liquid Scintillation Counters
meteorology. He has enriched the natural tritium in
water from rain, ground water, and lakes, and has ex-
changed the resultant water with toluene under acid
catalysis. After this treatment, 25 per cent of the original
tritium resided in the toluene. With this toluene as the
solvent of a liquid scintillation counter, operating at
-70C in coincidence, a limiting sensitivity of one
tritium atom in 1018 hydrogen atoms was realized. The
counting efficiency for tritium was 45 per cent.
Bell' has used liquid scintillation
counting of tritium
in tritium-labeled water because of its ready applicability,
both to great numbers of samples and to realization of
high sensitivity. He has carried out experiments on model
as well as actual rivers, assaying tritium
activity
vs time
and position relative to the point of entry of the original
labeled water sample.
Guinn' has quoted some industrial
applications of small-
volume, internal-sample liquid scintillation
counting in
industrial research. Examples are: tritium
counting of
exhaust water after use of tritium-labeled
lubricating oil
to follow the rate of combustion of such oils in
operating
engines, C'4 counting to determine the
stability
of a fuel
oil additive in long-term storage, S35 counting to estimate
the exchange of hydrogen sulfide with sulfur atoms in
metal sulfide catalysts, and p32
counting to study entrain-
ment in aqueous large-scale distillation columns with
P32-labeled phosphoric acid as a nonvolatile tracer.
Langham' has reported on the small-volume, internal-
sample liquid scintillation counting of H3, C"4, Na22, S35,
Ca45 5r90 j131 CS134, CS137, U233, U235,
and Pu239,
i
various chemical forms, as a part of a biological and
medical research program. As an example of part of the
tritium applications, counting of tritium water which
appears in the blood and urine of a person after ingestion
has led to such physiological data for that person as
gastric hold-up time, equilibrium time between gas-
trointestinal tract and blood, equilibrium time between
blood and total body fluids, total body water, rate of
turn-over of body water, per cent lean body mass, and
per cent gross body fat. Another similar and quite practical
applications of tritium water counting is the "on-the-hoof"
determination of per cent body fat in a steer.
Roucayroll in France has taken paper chromatograms
of C'4,1131, and P32-labeled compounds, has wet the papers
with a liquid scintillator, and has then scanned them with
a single photomultiplier. Special techniques have been
developed for handling toluene-soluble, as well as toluene-
insoluble, compounds.
Arnold"
3'
has been able to effect very sensitive counting
of natural C'4 in a 100-ml scintillator solution, whose sol-
vent is a mixture of hexane and octane equivalent to
47 g of carbon. The solvent was prepared in the sequence:
sample, carbon dioxide, acetylene, the 6-carbon and
8-carbon polymers of acetylene, and hexane and octane.
Baranov, Goldanskii and Roganov32 in Moscow have
made a high-energy neutron dosimeter from a 70-ml
volume of a liquid scintillator which serves both as a
source of carbon and as a detector of C" disintegration
positrons. The C" results from the C'2(n, 2n)C" reaction
which has a 20.6-mev threshold. The useful range of the
dosimeter is from 40 to 400 mev.
LARGE-VOLUME EXTERNAL-SAMPLE COUNTING
The large liquid scintillation counter is usually more
notable for the large number of photomultipliers used
than for the large volume of liquid, since many 2-inch
cathodes are required in a large counter to allow even a
small fraction of the inner surface to be photosensitive.
It is common practice to furnish the remainder of the
inner surface with a diffuse reflector whose index of
refraction is higher than that of the scintillator which
bathes it.
An interesting difference between the small and large
scintillation counters involves the lifetime of a solution
used in filling the counter. This time is usually quite
short with the small counters, since the solution is asso-
ciated with only one counting sample and must be replaced
by a new solution when the next assay is run. The labora-
tory in which 100 analyses a day are run, using 25 cm3
of scintillator for each sample, will use up 2.5 liters in
such a day. In 120 such days, the total volume used will
equal the 0.3 m3 volume of the oft-termed "giant" liquid
scintillation detector used in the 1953 search for the free
neutrino.
Whereas the small detector is continuously being
refilled, the large detector filling tends to stay put. This
introduces an important question for large detectors as
to aging of a liquid scintillator. A specific quotable case
involves a Los Alamos counter whose p-terphenyl-aNPO-
toluene filling after 3' years still had 0.86 of its original
pulse height. A loss in efficiency on standing in a detector
may arise from leaching of trace materials from the
reflector, the container, cement, or 0-rings, or from
chemical action of dissolved oxygen on the scintillator
components. It seems to be important in the use of
triethylbenzene in a large counter to replace the dissolved
and free air in the counter with an inert gas such as argon.
A fascinating property of large-volume liquid scintilla-
tion detectors which have good light collection efficiency is
their ability to give sharp energy resolution for energetic
gamma rays. The dimensions of the detector allow an
entering gamma ray to impart essentially all of its energy
to the scintillator by multiple Compton scattering. A
0.06 m3 square cylindrical detector8 with about 4 per cent
of its internal surface photosensitive and with an internal
titanium dioxide reflector gave about 13.5 per cent resolu-
tion (full width at half maximum) for 4.43-mev gammas
from excited C'2 and, with decreasing gamma energy,
31 J. R. Arnold, "Scintillation counting of natural radiocarbon: 32 P. S. Baranov, V. I. Goldanskii, and V. S. Roganov, "Dos-
I. The counting method," Science, vol. 119, pp. 155-157; January, imeter for high-energy neutrons," Rev. Sci. Instr., vol. 28, pp. 1-29-
1954.
1032; December, 1957.
1958 169

IRE TRANSACTIONS ON NUCLEAR SCIENCE
responded according to the relationship: Per cent R =
kE
1/2
The earliest large-volume counters were about 0.03 m3
in volume and were used for studies of cosmic rays33 and
of total absorption of gamma rays.34 It was indeed a
spectacular increase when Cowan and Reines35 jumped
to 0.3 m3 for the Hanford phase of the search for the free
neutrino. Hydrogen, for the most part in the toluene
solvent, was allowed to be transmuted by neutrinos to
give, in each interaction, a positron and a neutron. The
positron gave a prompt scintillation and then after a short
slowing down time, the neutron was captured in cadmium
to give about 9.1 mev of gammas, which contributed a
delayed scintillation. The cadmium was in the form of
cadmium propionate, which was dissolved in the scintilla-
tor with the help of methanol.
A similar detector has been used to set a 1022 years lower
limit on the lifetime of a nucleon36 and to measure the
distribution of fission neutron multiplicities.37'38 In the
latter application an 81 per cent efficiency for couniting
neutrons of a few mev was realized. By this time, cadmium
2-ethylhexanoate was found to be a better homogeneous
source of cadmium than cadmium propionate and metha-
nol. This same 0.3 m3 detector system has been used in
a velocity as well as time distribution study of prompt-
neutron emission from spontaneous fission modes of
Cf232.39 Both boron-loaded40 and cadmium-loaded4' liquid
scintillation counters have been used for neutron detection.
A 0.57 m3 detector has been used in an attempt to
identify double beta decays.42 Most of the volume served
as a cosmic ray and gamma ray anticoincidence shield.
A small detector in the center, which used the same liquid
as the outer detector, was a two-section coincidence
detector for betas.
Harrison' has reported that he is now studying
the
strength of the interaction between cosmic ray ,u-mesons
33
F. B. Harrison, "Large-area liquid scintillation counters,"
Nucleonics, vol. 10, pp. 40-45; June, 1952.
34
M. R. Cleland and H. W. Koch, "High-energy gamma-ray
spectrometer," Nucleonics, vol. 10, p. 41; March, 1952.
35
C. L. Cowan, Jr., F. Reines, F. B. Harrison,
E. C.
Anderson,
and F. N. Hayes, "Large liquid scintillation detectors," Phys. Rev.,
vol. 90, p. 493; May, 1953.
36 F. Reines, C. L. Cowan, and M. Goldhaber, "Conservation
of the number of nucleons," Phys. Rev., vol. 96, pp. 1157-1158;
November, 1954.
37
B. C. Diven, H. C. Martin, R. F. Taschek,
and J. Terrell,
"Multiplicities of fission neutrons," Phys. Rev., vol. 101, pp.
1012-
1015; February, 1956.
38 D. A. Hicks, J. Ise, Jr., and R. V.
Pyle,
"Probabilities of
prompt-neutron emission from spontaneous fission," Phys. Rev.,
vol. 101, pp. 1016-1020; February,
1956.
3
W. E. Stein and S. L. Whetstone, Jr., submitted to Phys.
Rev.
40 L. M. Bollinger and G. E. Thomas,
"Boron-loaded liquid
scintillation neutron detectors," Rev. Sci. Instr.,
vol.
28, pp. 489-496;
July, 1957.
41 F. Reines, C. L. Cowan, Jr., F. B. Harrison, and D. L. Carter,
"Detection of neutrons with large liquid scintillation counter,"
Rev.
Sci. Instr., vol. 25, pp. 1061-1070; November,
1954.
42 C. L. Cowan, Jr., F. B. Harrison,
L. M. Langer,
and F.
Reines,
"A test of neutrino-antineutrino identity," Nuovo cimento, vol. 3,
pp. 649-651; March, 1956.
and carbon nuclei which are part of a large-volume
detector. The 1.4 m3 of liquid is contained in a polyethylene
container to minimize background above 5 mev by remov-
ing the Fe(n, -y) source of background which occurs
with an iron container.
In case all this mention of volume in m3 is difficult to
visualize, a corollary consideration in weight units is
interesting. One m3 of a liquid scintillator weighs about
one ton.
The most giant, large-volume, external-sample detector
reported to date43 is the 1.8 m3 volume, three of which
were used at the same time, for the Savannah River phase
of the search for the free neutrino. In this case, the
identifiable neutrino interactions took place in two water
targets containing cadmium chloride oriented in a double-
decker sandwich-array with the three scintillation counters.
Delayed gamma coincidences from positron annihilationl
followed by neutron-cadmium reaction were detected in
the liquid counters. Each counter had 110 5-inch photo-
multipliers, half of which were at each end of a slab
configuration. The solution which was used was 3 g/1
p-terphenyl and 0.2 g/1 POPOP in triethylbeuizenie.
Biological and medical employment of large-volume,
external-sample liquid scintillation detectors44 has made
use of an enveloping, 4r-approximating geometry around
the sample which is easily introduced into the countinlg
position in an axially-oriented cylinder inside an annular
ring of liquid.45 Two versions which exist at Los Alamos
are the small-animal counter whose scintillator volume is
0.036 m3, and the Human Counter46 (0.42 m3). Both
counters are used in studying gross as well as specific
metabolism of radioisotopes in live experimental animals
and human beings.
Reines,1 while speculating on the limits in size on a li(uid
scintillation detector, conjured up a vision of a 10 m X 10
m cylinder holding about 700 m3 of liquid. It has a few
hundred 5-inch photomultipliers and an efficient diffuse
reflector, and gives about 50 per cent resolution for a
1-mev event. The time response of this detector is limited
by the velocity of light, it has as much mass per uinit
area as the entire atmosphere, and it represents a total
absorber for charged particles up to 1.5 bev, considering
ionization as the only process contributing to energy loss.
Such a detector, which is almost 400 times larger than the
largest in use today, may not be made for many years,
but as its size is approached, today's large-volume counters
will have to be renamed.
43 C. L. Cowan, Jr., F. Reines, F. B. Harrison, H. W. Kruse,
and A. D. McGuire, "Detection of the free neutrino: a confirma-
tion," Science, vol. 124, pp. 103-104; July, 1956.
44
W. H. Langham, see footnore 1.
45
M. A. Van Dilla, R. L. Schuch, and E. C. Anderson, "A large
47r gamma-ray detector," Nitcleonics, vol. 12, pp. 22-27; September,
1954.
46
E. C. Anderson, R. L. Schuch, J. D. Perrings, and W. H.
Langham, "The Los Alamos human counter," Nucleonics, vol. 14,
pp. 26-29; January, 1956.
170
December

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