Radioactive contamination of BaF2 crystal scintillator

Abstract

Barium fluoride (BaF$_2$) crystal scintillators are promising detectors to search for double beta decay processes in $^{130}$Ba ($Q_{2β}$ = 2619(3) keV) and $^{132}$Ba ($Q_{2β}$ = 844(1) keV). The $^{130}$Ba isotope is of particular interest because of the indications on 2$β$ decay found in two geochemical experiments. The radioactive contamination of BaF$_2$ scintillation crystal with mass of 1.714 kg was measured over 113.4 hours in a low-background DAMA/R&D set-up deep underground (3600 m w.e.) at the Gran Sasso National Laboratories of INFN (LNGS, Italy). The half-life of $^{212}$Po (present in the crystal scintillator due to contamination by radium) was estimated as $T_{1/2}$ = 298.8 $\pm$ 0.8(stat.) $\pm$ 1.4(syst.) ns by analysis of the events pulse profiles.

Contribution to Proc. of Int. Workshop on Radiopure Scintillators RPSCINT 2013, 17-20.09.2013, Kyiv, Ukraine; to be published in EPJ Web of Conferences; 4 pages, 7 figure and 1 table