Counterintuitive MCNPX results for scintillator surface roughness effect

摘要

We performed a number of comparative MCNPX simulations of gamma energy depositions of scintillation crystals with smooth and rough surfaces. In the study, nine surface patterns (8 micro-roughness + 1 smooth) were coupled with eight common scintillation crystals for a total of 72 possible combinations. Although this was a preliminary study, the outcome was counterintuitive; results generally favored surfaces with micro-roughness over a conventional smooth surface as measured in terms of average energy depositions. The advantage gained through surface roughness is less significant for CdSe and LaCl3, but is most significant for the common NaI and the glass-like SiO2 scintillators. Based on the results of the 64 rough-surface coupled MCNPX simulations, 57 of the 64 (~89%) simulations showed some improvement in energy deposition. The mean improvement in energy deposition was 2.52%. The maximum improvement was about 8.75%, which was achieved when roughening the surface of a SiO2 scintillator using a micro cutting pattern. Further, for a conventional NaI scintillator, MCNPX results suggest that any roughness pattern would improve the energy deposition, with an average improvement of 3.83%. Although the likely causes remain unclear, we intend to focus on presenting simulation results instead of offering a sound explanation of the underlying physics.© (2012) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.