Plastic scintillators are widely deployed radiation detectors due to their low cost and environmental ruggedness. Their effectiveness, however, is limited by their low atomic number resulting in low stopping power and poor photopeak efficiency. Here, we compare two different Bi-loaded plastic scintillator formulations to conventional plastic, demonstrating improved spectroscopy and stopping power at the ~18 in3 scale. One approach, Bi-pivalate plastics, uses conventional fluors and may be used as a drop-in replacement for currently deployed plastics such as EJ200. The other approach, Bismuth Loaded Iridium-complex Plastics (BLIP), uses an Iridium-based fluor for higher light yield and higher Bi loading.
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