scintillation counter

American  

noun

1. a device for detecting and measuring radioactivity, having a crystal scintillator, a photoelectric cell sensitive to the light from scintillations, and an amplifier.

---

scintillation counter British  

noun

1. an instrument for detecting and measuring the intensity of high-energy radiation. It consists of a phosphor with which particles collide producing flashes of light that are detected by a photomultiplier and converted into pulses of electric current that are counted by electronic equipment

---

Etymology

Origin of scintillation counter

First recorded in 1945–50

Example Sentences

Then they tracked the resulting annihilation radiation at the farthest edges of their experiment, using two photomultiplier tubes, anthracene crystals and a scintillation counter as a gamma-ray detector.

From Scientific American • Mar. 16, 2023

Today, with the aid of radioactive tritium and an ultramodern scintillation counter, the job can be done in minutes.

From Time Magazine Archive

Silver atoms that are caught in the penetrating beam capture neutrons and briefly become unstable isotopes, emitting gamma rays that can be recorded by the snooper's scintillation counter.

From Time Magazine Archive

Channel II came from a scintillation counter sensitive to radiation from one direction.

From Time Magazine Archive

"If brains were radium, you couldn't make a flicker on a scintillation counter."

From Pagan Passions by Stanley, Robert