How Gamma Rays & Scintillators Work: Questions Answered

[calloutman]

I'm doing a lab using a scintillator/PMT to perform gamma ray spectroscopy, I'm a little bit unsure on how the scintillator works-

When a scintillator atom is impacted by a gamma ray, it emits a photon (or a number of photons?). Does the photon emitted have a energy related to the energy of the gamma ray? Or does the scintillator material release a number of photons of the same energy, with the number of photons being related to the gamma ray energy?
Or is it something else entirely?

I'm a bit confused and my textbooks/wikipedia hasn't been too helpful.

Thanks
cm

 

[NateD]

cWhen a scintillator atom is impacted by a gamma ray, it emits a number of photons with each photon having an energy related to the energy of the gamma ray. The amount of light (number of photons) produced is proportional to the energy of the gamma ray. The scintillator material also absorbs some of the incoming energy, which is then converted into heat.