3D printable polyvinyltoluene-based plastic scintillators with pulse shape discrimination

A feasibility of preparing bulk photopolymerized plastics scintillators that contain vinyltoluene with multifunctional monomers, pentaerythritol tetraacrylate is shown. This formulation offers a simple and fast way to prepare polyvinyltoluene-based plastics with efficient fast neutron/gamma pulse shape discrimination (PSD) within minutes. 30 wt% of 2,5-diphenyloxazole (PPO) was added in the mixtures of vinyltoluene and pentaerythritol tetraacrylate with different secondary dyes to understand the effect of dyes on the scintillation. Prepared resins were photopolymerized under different conditions, and the scintillation performance was compared to a commercially available standard, EJ-276. Additional functionality for thermal neutron sensitivity was introduced by the incorporation of 6Li and 6B nuclei. With optimized conditions, prepared plastics showed light output up to 90% relative to the same size of EJ-276. The best plastic scintillators had PSD figures of merit (FoMs) up to 2.77 compared to 3.25 of EJ-276. The 3D-printability of the tested formulations was demonstrated. •New formulations of photocurable resin are shown for preparations of plastic scintillators.•The effect of different secondary dyes and polymerization conditions are considered to enhance pulse shape discrimination.•Thermal neutron sensitivity of studied resins was introduced by the addition of 6Li and 10B nuclei.•New formulation resins were used for 3D printing of various sizes and shapes of scintillators.•Photocured plastics show up to 90% light output and up to 2.77 figures of merit compared to EJ-276, depending on resins.