Synthesis of Silver-Activated Zinc Sulfide (Zns:Ag) Powder by Thermal Diffusion Method for Production of Thin Film Alpha Scintillators

Silver-activated zinc sulfide (ZnS:Ag) powder was successfully synthesized by a physical thermal diffusion method in flux of NaCl to produce this film scintillators for alpha particle detection. The synthesized and commercial ZnS:Ag powders were coated uniformly on Plexiglas disc substrates by a spin coating method. Alpha counting efficiency of the films produced from the synthesized and commercial powders are respectively ~56% and ~67% while they are ~65.6% and ~80% relative to that of the commercial Eljen440 scintillator film. Alpha counting efficiency of the synthesized scintillator film is ~82.8% of the commercial powder film which has itself ~80% efficiency relative to that of the Eljen440 scintillator film. The physical thermal diffusion method applied is rather simple and efficient in particular, if a higher purity material is used which can be simply applied in any developing laboratory.