scintillation

American  

[sin-tl-ey-shuhn] / ˌsɪn tlˈeɪ ʃən /

noun

1. the act of scintillating; sparkling.

2. a spark or flash.

3. Astronomy. the twinkling or tremulous effect of the light of the stars.

4. Meteorology. any small-scale twinkling or shimmering of objects that are viewed through the atmosphere, caused by an interception of the observer's line of view by inhomogeneities in the atmospheric refractive index.

5. Physics.

   1. a flash of light from the ionization of a phosphor struck by an energetic photon or particle.

   2. random fluctuation of the amplitude, phase, or polarization of an electromagnetic wave.

6. (on a radar display) a slight, rapid shifting of a spot of light or the image of an object about its mean position.

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scintillation British  

/ ˌsɪntɪˈleɪʃən /

noun

1. the act of scintillating

2. a spark or flash

3. the twinkling of stars or radio sources, caused by rapid changes in the density of the earth's atmosphere, the interplanetary medium, or the interstellar medium, producing uneven refraction of starlight

4. physics a flash of light produced when a material scintillates

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Etymology

Origin of scintillation

First recorded in 1615–25, scintillation is from the Latin word scintillātiōn- (stem of scintillātiō ). See scintillate, -ion

Example Sentences

The Tibet ASgamma experiment spotted the photons using an array of nearly 600 scintillation detectors, sensors that turn particle strikes into electronic signals.

From Science Magazine

So it could be that detail, or it could be that France, a team with the dazzling capacity to scintillate, did not scintillate wholly, committing insufficient scintillation.

From Washington Post

Vollmann treks through communities in the vicinity of the Fukushima plant, measuring radiation with a dosimeter and a scintillation counter wherever he goes.

From Washington Post

But I couldn’t have absorbed much more scintillation just then anyway.

From New York Times

Bands corresponding to standard PS and PE were scraped from the plates and radioactivity was measured by scintillation counting after overnight incubation at room temperature.

From Nature