Detection of scintillation lights emitted from various scintillators with a silicon photodiode and a comparison with that with a photomultiplier

The gamma-ray detection performance of a silicon photodiode(Hamamatsu S 1790 - 02) coupled to each of eleven small scintillators(10 x 10 mm2 x 6 mm, 7 mm, 10 mm or 20 mm) was measured and compared with that of a photomultiplier(Hamamatsu R 1306) coupled to the same scintillators. The scintillators were CsI(T1), CsI(Na), NaI(T1), CdWO4(CWO), CaF2(Eu), Ce:Gd2SiO5(GSO), Bi4Ge3O12(BGO), CsI(pure), BaF2, NE 905 and NaI(pure). The numbers of electron-hole pairs/MeV-γ, the average energies needed to produce one photon and the absolute scintillation efficiencies obtained from the photodiode measurements with CsI(T1), CsI(Na), NaI(T1), CWO, GSO, BGO and BaF2 as well as those obtained from the photomultiplier measurements are listed. The existence of the intrinsic pulse height broadening was clearly indicated in the photomultiplier measurements with CsI(Na), CsI(T1), CsI(pure) and NaI(T1). (author)