Title: scintillation counter
Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - scintillation counter
DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.S05504
Status: current

Definition
A scintillator coupled to a photomultiplier tube. Incident X-ray photons are converted in the scintillator into bursts of visible light photons, some of which fall on the photocathode and can be measured. For incident photons having energies higher than the absorption edge of the elements contained in the scintillator, an escape peak can be observed.

Related Terms
- photomultiplier tube: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/P04626
- visible: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/VT07496

Source
- PAC, 1995, 67, 1745. 'Nomenclature, symbols, units and their usage in spectrochemical analysis-XI. Detection of radiation (IUPAC Recommendations 1995)' on page 1753 (https://doi.org/10.1351/pac199567101745)

Other Outputs
- html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/S05504/html
- json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/S05504/json
- xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/S05504/xml

Citation: Citation: 'scintillation counter' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.S05504
License: The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms.
Collection: If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org .
Disclaimer: The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using.
Accessed: 2026-07-25T23:27:34+00:00