Light yield of Perovskite nanocrystal-doped liquid scintillator

Abstract

© 2019 IOP Publishing Ltd and Sissa Medialab. Future generations of liquid scintillator neutrino experiments will require stably loading tons of candidate isotopes into kiloton-scale detectors while controlling the scintillator's optical properties. Nanoparticles' unique structural properties allow them to be used as highly-tunable wavelength shifters, which can be used to enhance double beta decay detection and background discrimination. Additionally, these nanoparticles can be made with double beta decay isotopes, which offers a promising method for isotope loading. Perovskite nanocrystals are particularly attractive due to the reliability of their crystal structure and their easily-scalable synthesis. We present here the first study of lead-based perovskite nanocrystals in a liquid scintillator experiment, demonstrating their properties as wavelength shifters and the scintillator cocktail's behavior under increasing nanocrystal mass-loading.