The Origin of Scintillations in Organic Materials

Calculations of the energy expended by a charged particle in producing optical excitation of molecules of the scintillator indicate the possibility that most of the energy emitted as light during a scintillation may stem, either directly or via intermolecular transfer, from molecules excited in this way. Observations of the slowly-decaying components of the emission suggest, however, that these components arise from molecules left in excited states as a result of the process of ion recombination.