Scintillator in the context of "Dodecane"

Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is a microscopy technique in which a beam of electrons is transmitted through a specimen to form an image. The specimen is most often an ultrathin section less than 100 nm thick or a suspension on a grid. An image is formed from the interaction of the electrons with the sample as the beam is transmitted through the specimen. The image is then magnified and focused onto an imaging device, such as a fluorescent screen, a layer of photographic film, or a detector such as a scintillator attached to a charge-coupled device or a direct electron detector.

Transmission electron microscopes are capable of imaging at a significantly higher resolution than light microscopes, owing to the smaller de Broglie wavelength of electrons. This enables the instrument to capture fine detail—even as small as a single column of atoms, which is thousands of times smaller than a resolvable object seen in a light microscope. Transmission electron microscopy is a major analytical method in the physical, chemical and biological sciences. TEMs find application in cancer research, virology, and materials science as well as pollution, nanotechnology and semiconductor research, but also in other fields such as paleontology and palynology.

The Everhart–Thornley detector (E–T detector or ET detector) is a secondary electron and back-scattered electron detector used in scanning electron microscopes (SEMs). It is named after its designers, Thomas E. Everhart and Richard F. M. Thornley, who in 1960 published their design to increase the efficiency of existing secondary electron detectors by adding a light pipe to carry the photon signal from the scintillator inside the evacuated specimen chamber of the SEM to the photomultiplier outside the chamber. Prior to this Everhart had improved a design for a secondary electron detection by Vladimir Zworykin and Jan A. Rajchman by changing the electron multiplier to a photomultiplier. The Everhart–Thornley Detector with its lightguide and highly efficient photomultiplier is the most frequently used detector in SEMs.

The detector consists primarily of a scintillator inside a Faraday cage inside the specimen chamber of the microscope. A low positive voltage is applied to the Faraday cage to attract the relatively low energy (less than 50 eV by definition) secondary electrons. Other electrons within the specimen chamber are not attracted by this low voltage and will only reach the detector if their direction of travel takes them to it. The scintillator has a high positive voltage (in the nature of 10,000 V) to accelerate the incoming electrons to it where they can be converted to light photons. The direction of their travel is focused to the lightguide by a metal coating on the scintillator acting as a mirror. In the light pipe the photons travel outside of the microscope's vacuum chamber to a photomultiplier tube for amplification.

Scheelite is a calcium tungstate mineral with the chemical formula CaWO₄. It is an important ore of tungsten (wolfram). Scheelite is originally named after Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele (1742–1786). Well-formed crystals are sought by collectors and are occasionally fashioned into gemstones when suitably free of flaws. Scheelite has been synthesized using the Czochralski process; the material produced may be used to imitate diamond, as a scintillator, or as a solid-state lasing medium. It was also used in radium paint in the same fashion as was zinc sulphide, and Thomas Edison invented a fluoroscope with a calcium tungstate-coated screen, making the images six times brighter than those with barium platinocyanide; the latter chemical allowed Röntgen to discover X-rays in early November 1895. The semi-precious stone marketed as 'blue scheelite' is actually a rock type consisting mostly of calcite and dolomite, with occasional traces of yellow-orange scheelite.

The Energetic Gamma Ray Experiment Telescope (EGRET) was one of four instruments outfitted on NASA's Compton Gamma Ray Observatory satellite. Since lower energy gamma rays cannot be accurately detected on Earth's surface, EGRET was built to detect gamma rays while in space. EGRET was created for the purpose of detecting and collecting data on gamma rays ranging in energy level from 30 MeV to 30 GeV.

To accomplish its task, EGRET was equipped with a spark chamber, calorimeter, and plastic scintillator anti-coincidence dome. The spark chamber was used to induce a process called electron-positron pair production as a gamma ray entered the telescope. The calorimeter on the telescope was then used to record the data from the electron or positron. To reject other energy rays that would skew the data, scientists covered the telescope with a plastic scintillator anti-coincidence dome. The dome acted as a shield for the telescope and blocked out any unwanted energy rays.

In condensed matter physics, scintillation (/ˈsɪntɪleɪʃən/ SIN-til-ay-shun) is the physical process where a material, called a scintillator, emits ultraviolet or visible light under excitation from high energy photons (X-rays or gamma rays) or energetic particles (such as electrons, alpha particles, neutrons, or ions).

A neutrino detector is a physics apparatus which is designed to study neutrinos.Because neutrinos only weakly interact with other particles of matter, neutrino detectors must be very large to detect a significant number of neutrinos. Neutrino detectors are often built underground, to isolate the detector from cosmic rays and other background radiation. The field of neutrino astronomy is still very much in its infancy – the only confirmed extraterrestrial sources as of 2018 are the Sun and the supernova 1987A in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud. Another likely source (three standard deviations) is the blazar TXS 0506+056 about 3.7 billion light years away. Neutrino observatories will "give astronomers fresh eyes with which to study the universe".

Various detection methods have been used. Super Kamiokande is a large volume of water surrounded by phototubes that watch for the Cherenkov radiation emitted when an incoming neutrino creates an electron or muon in the water. The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory was similar, but used heavy water as the detecting medium. Other detectors have consisted of large volumes of chlorine or gallium which are periodically checked for excesses of argon or germanium, respectively, which are created by neutrinos interacting with the original substance. MINOS used a solid plastic scintillator watched by phototubes; Borexino uses a liquid pseudocumene scintillator also watched by phototubes; and the NOνA detector uses a liquid scintillator watched by avalanche photodiodes.