Monte Carlo simulation study for gamma energy deposition in scintillator coupled silicon photomultiplier detector.

Silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) are gaining popularity over conventional photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) in various radiation detection applications. For this application, it is necessary to optimize the scintillator material and its geometry. In order to develop a compact, low power gamma spectrometry system based on a scintillator coupled SiPM detector, energy deposition in Gd3Ga3Al2O12(Ce) (abbreviated as GGAG(Ce)), NaI(Tl) and CsI(Tl) scintillators of different dimensionswas calculated using Monte Carlo simulation code FLUKA for different gamma energies from 60 keV to 2614 keV. It is observed that energy deposition is highest in GGAG(Ce) followed byCsI(Tl) and NaI(Tl) respectively. By increasing thepath length of the scintillator, energy deposition is seen to increase for energies 662 keV, 1250 keV and 2614 keV. However, for 60 keV, the increase in longitudinal dimension above 3 mm does not affect the energy deposition. Based on the simulation data,GGAG(Ce) scintillator with 3×3×24 mm3 geometry was chosen for making a scintillator coupledSiPM detector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]