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The paper describes the effect of high effective atomic number (Z eff) materials loading in polystyrene based thin-film Plastic Scintillators (PS). Thin plastic scintillator sheets have been loaded with high Z materials such as BaFBr:Eu, Gd 2 O 2 S:Tb, Gd 2 O 3 , BaF 2 , CeO 2 and Bi 2 O 3. Polystyrene based PS sheets of 250 ± 50 μ m thickness have been prepared by dissolving predetermined quantities of polystyrene, 2,5-Diphenyloxazole (PPO) and 1,4-bis(5-phenyl-2-oxazolyl) benzene (POPOP) in the p-xylene solvent. High Z eff material powders of 23 μ m size are mixed in the plastic scintillator solution and coated over the cellulose acetate-based transparency sheets. The dried films are peeled off, and their photoluminescence, radioluminescence, pulse height spectrum and response to alpha, beta, gamma and neutron radiations are studied by adopting suitable methods. The high Z eff materials for loading in PS are selected based on their physical properties like refractive index, bandgap, Z eff , Photoluminescence (PL) properties. While the composite scintillator loaded with 14.3 wt% of BaFBr:Eu2+ showed significant increase compare to other high Z materials. The loading concentration has been optimized as 14.3 wt% from the BaFBr:Eu2+ studies. Most of the composite scintillators showed improvement in radioluminescence and pulse height spectra for different radiations. • Polystyrene based thin plastic scintillator have been prepared by solvent-based fabrication method. • Thin composite plastic scintillator are studied with high Z eff material loading. • High Z eff material loaded composite scintillators showed enhanced response to radiation. • BaFBr:Eu loaded composite PS has shown the best promising result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]