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Plastic Scintillating Fibers (Materials and Structures)

Materials

  Material Refractive
index
Density
(g/cm3)
No. of atom
per cm3
Core Polystyrene (PS) nD=1.59 1.05 C:4.9x1022
H:4.9x1022
Cladding for single cladding
inner for multi cladding
Polymethylmethacrylate
(PMMA)
nD=1.49 1.19 C:3.6x1022
H:5.7x1022
O:1.4x1022
outer for multi cladding Fluorinated polymer (FP) nD=1.42 1.43  

Cross-section and Cladding Thickness

  Single Cladding Multi Cladding (M)
Round Fiber (D)
Square Fiber (SQ) Not available

Cladding and Transmission mechanism

Single Cladding

Single cladding is standard type of cladding.

Multi Cladding

Multi cladding fiber(M) 50% has higher light yield than single cladding fiber because of large trapping efficiency.
Clear-PS fiber of this cladding has extremely higher NA than conventional PMMA or PS fiber, and very useful as light guide fiber.
Multicladding fiber has long attenuation length equal to single cladding fiber.

Type of Polymer Orientation of PS Core

Standard type (Non-S type)

PS core is of almost no oriented polystyrene chain and is optically isotropic and very transparent.
This conventional standard type has good attenuation length, but it showed weakness against cracking caused by bending or handling during assembling.

S type (S)

Core has molecular orientation along drawing direction. This fiber is mechanically stronger against cracking at the cost of transparency.
The attenuation length of this type is nearly 10% shorter than standard type.

Dimensions and Tolerance

Cross-sectional Dimension

Minimum : 0.2mm, Maximum : 2.0mm, typically as follows.
Round (Single and Multi Cladding) : 0.2, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0mm dia.
Square (Single Cladding) : 0.2x0.2, 0.5x0.5, 1.0x1.0, 2.0x2.0mm side

Tolerance of Diameter

Cut Fiber (1-5m long) :

Endless Spool Fiber :

Bending Loss and Minimum Bending Diameter

Bending Loss

The following figure shows bending loss of Clear-PSM and Clear PSMS.
S type is better than Non-S type.
The rapid increase of bending loss of non-S type is due to cracking of core.
S type does not show such cracking.

Measurement Method

Minimum Bending Diameter

We recommend minimum bending diameter as the following table on safety side and long term reliability.

Type 2mmФFiber 1mmФFiber 0.5mmФFiber
S type 200mm 100mm 50mm
Non-S type 400mm 200mm 100mm

How to indentify the fibers specifications

  • Plastic Scintillating Fibers
  • Wavelength Shifting Fibers
  • Clear Fibers