Talk:Scintillator

message: paranoid people worry about the radiation from microwave ovens.  scientists say "bah!  microwaves can't go through the little holes!  there is no danger!"  but couldn't there be a scintillator effect that would re-emit the microwaves as higher frequency waves that would go through the grating and slowlY KILL EVERYONE WITHOUT THEM KNOWING?  (GOVERNMENT CONSPIRACY!!!)
Just a thought. :-) 
Omegatron 21:51, Feb 19, 2004 (UTC)
:No that will not happen. Scintillation is generally a down-conversion process, i.e. the energy of the emitted photons is lower than the energy of the absorbed photons. This is generally true for fluorescence (absorption and re-emission of UV/Visible/IR light) as well, as the excited electrons usually lose energy via thermalization. Lower energy means larger wavelength which thus will be also be blocked by the faraday cage of the microwave oven. Even if for some reason some "up-conversion" process would be occurring in the microwave oven, it's extremely unlikely (really near impossible when it comes to food and other household items) that it would be radiation with a wavelength small enough (at leas 5-10 times smaller, i.e. 5-10 times more energy), to pass through the faraday cage. Also it would not be "scintillation". Scintillation is a process where ionizing radiation (so not microwave radiation) is absorbed and then re emitted in the UV/Visible/IR range.  User:DrFrankM11
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There is a slight difference between "high energy (ionizing) electromagnetic or charged particle radiation" (like gamma rays, higher in energy than X-rays) and microwaves, which are even lower in energy than visible light or infrared. And scintillation "fluoresces photons at a characteristic Stokes-shifted (longer) wavelength" ("longer", mind, this means an even lower frequency than micro-waves...). You could as well be afraid of being killed by radio waves when sunbathing behind a grid. Enjoy your summer. ;-) David  13:44, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure I understand the point you're making..... could you restate it a bit clearer? --Deglr6328 22:00, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: paranoid people...

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message: When I edited the reaction in the section "Organic scintillators" to improve its appearance I left the word "phonons" unchanged, but shouldn't it be "photons?"  "Phonons" is a word that has some applicability maybe, but I don't know. Fix it if it is wrong. Jmc76 (talk) 18:28, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe "phonons" is likely correct there. It's a transition involving molecular orbitals in a crystal. Involvement of phonons is not surprising. The photons are emitted when S^* decays to S_0, as stated in the text.--Srleffler (talk) 02:38, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Question about "phonons"

message: Hi! When reading the article on "Scintillator" I found that under the section "Principle of operation" it rather explains how the light generated by a scintillator material is then used to make a scintillation counter or similar, but does not explain the principle of operation of the scintillator itself.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.240.104.144 (talk) 10:14, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Principle of operation section slightly off-topic? 

message: I think this article would benefit from a section comparing scintillators with Geiger-Mueller radiation detectors. The question of which one is more useful in practice or has better value for money often arises among laypersons interested in fiestaware, antique radium clocks, rocks and crystals, etc. collection hobbies.
For a practical example, the Radiacode-102 scintillator from Cyprus and the CQ GMC-600+ "pancake" tube GM counter from USA both cost around 400 USD. The 600+ can detect Alpha, in addition to Beta, Gamma and X-rays. Meanwhile, the R-102 can display "educated guesses" in smartphone app about which isotope(s) are emitting the measured radiation, due to spectroscopy ability inherent to crystal detectors. 84.236.41.61 (talk) 12:17, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Section comparing scintillator devices with G-M devices would be a welcome and useful addition.