Sound and Light from Fractures in Scintillators

A. Tantot (1, 2) , S. Santucci (3) , O. Ramos (2) , Stéphanie Deschanel (4, 1) , M.-A. Verdier (1) , E. Mony (1) , Y. Wei (1) , S. Ciliberto (3) , L. Vanel (2) , P. Di Stefano (1)

1 Queen's University [Kingston, Canada]
2 ILM - Institut Lumière Matière [Villeurbanne]
3 Phys-ENS - Laboratoire de Physique de l'ENS Lyon
4 MATEIS - Matériaux, ingénierie et science [Villeurbanne]

Prompted by intriguing events observed in certain particle-physics searches for rare events, we study light and acoustic emission simultaneously in some inorganic scintillators subject to mechanical stress. We observe mechanoluminescence in Bi₄Ge₃O₁₂, CdWO₄, and ZnWO₄, in various mechanical configurations at room temperature and ambient pressure. We analyze the temporal and amplitude correlations between the light emission and the acoustic emission during fracture. A novel application of the precise energy calibration of Bi₄Ge₃O₁₂ provided by radioactive sources allows us to deduce that the fraction of elastic energy converted to light is at least 3×10⁻⁵.

Domaines: Science des matériaux [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]

A. Tantot, S. Santucci, O. Ramos, Stéphanie Deschanel, M.-A. Verdier, et al.. Sound and Light from Fractures in Scintillators. Physical Review Letters, 2013, 111 (15), pp.154301. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.154301⟩. ⟨hal-01727341⟩