Experimental study on scintillation efficiency of ZnO: In to proton response

Film ZnO:In crystal is a good candidate for a scintillation recoil proton neutron detection system and the response of ZnO:In to protons is a crucial point. The energy response of ZnO:In to mono-energetic protons in the range of 10 keV-8 MeV was measured. The experiment was carried out in current mode, and Au foil scattering was employed, where the forward scattering protons were used for exciting the sample, and the backward scattering protons were used for monitoring the beam intensity. According to the result, the yield of light non-linearly depends on proton energy, and drops significantly when proton energy is low. The scintillation efficiency as a function of proton energy was obtained, which is very useful for researching the scintillation recoil proton neutron detection system.