Scintillation timing characteristics of common plastics for radiation detectionexcited with 120 GeV protons

The timing characteristics of scintillators must be understood in order to determine which applications theyare appropriate for. Polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) and polyethylene teraphthalate (PET) are common plastics withuncommon scintillation properties. Here, we report the timing characteristics of PEN and PET, determined by excitingthem with 120 GeV protons. The test beam was provided by Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and the scintillatorswere tested at the Fermilab Test Beam Facility. PEN and PET are found to have dominant decay constants of 34.91 nsand 6.78 ns, respectively.