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Article

An Experimental and Theoretical Study of the Effective Length of Embedded Scintillator Materials in End-Constructed Optical Fiber Radiation Sensing Probes

1
Key Lab of In-Fiber Integrated Optics, Ministry Education of China, College of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin 150001, China
2
Qingdao Huangdao District People’s Hospital, Qingdao 266400, China
3
First Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Harbin 150001, China
4
Optical Fiber Sensors Research Centre, University of Limerick, Castletroy, V94 T9PX Limerick, Ireland
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sensors 2025, 25(21), 6704; https://doi.org/10.3390/s25216704
Submission received: 18 September 2025 / Revised: 29 October 2025 / Accepted: 31 October 2025 / Published: 2 November 2025

Abstract

Optical fiber radiation sensing probes made using inorganic scintillator materials have notable advantages in achieving high spatial resolution and building sensing arrays due to their small size and excellent linearity, serving as a key tool for dose measurement in precision radiotherapy. This study establishes a theoretical model for scintillator luminescence coupling into optical fibers, and derives a fluorescence intensity calculation formula based on the fiber’s numerical aperture and fluorescence self-absorption. The light intensity response to scintillator length for different absorption coefficients is established based on numerical simulation, providing a nonlinear fitting equation, resulting in a novel “effective length of scintillator” concept. Five probes with scintillator lengths of 0.2 mm, 0.5 mm, 1.0 mm, 1.5 mm, and 2.0 mm were prepared in the laboratory using a 3:1 mass ratio mixture of UV-setting epoxy and Gd2O2S:Tb powder. Tests in a clinical radiation delivery setting showed good agreement between experimental data and theory, confirming optimum effective length of the scintillator as 0.62 mm. This study indicates that inorganic scintillators for end-constructed probes do need not need to be excessively long. Analyzing the effective length can reduce scintillator usage, simplify fabrication and processing, and enhance the probe’s spatial resolution without decreasing the signal-to-noise ratio, thus offering new insights for optimizing optical fiber radiation probes.
Keywords: radiation detectors; fiber sensors; theoretical model; scintillators; effective length radiation detectors; fiber sensors; theoretical model; scintillators; effective length

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MDPI and ACS Style

Li, Y.; Feng, Y.; Wang, J.; He, B.; Chen, Z.; Yang, H.; Shi, Q.; Hao, W.; Qian, J.; Luo, J.; et al. An Experimental and Theoretical Study of the Effective Length of Embedded Scintillator Materials in End-Constructed Optical Fiber Radiation Sensing Probes. Sensors 2025, 25, 6704. https://doi.org/10.3390/s25216704

AMA Style

Li Y, Feng Y, Wang J, He B, Chen Z, Yang H, Shi Q, Hao W, Qian J, Luo J, et al. An Experimental and Theoretical Study of the Effective Length of Embedded Scintillator Materials in End-Constructed Optical Fiber Radiation Sensing Probes. Sensors. 2025; 25(21):6704. https://doi.org/10.3390/s25216704

Chicago/Turabian Style

Li, Yichen, Yong Feng, Jingjing Wang, Bo He, Ziyin Chen, Haojie Yang, Qieming Shi, Wenjing Hao, Jinqian Qian, Jiashun Luo, and et al. 2025. "An Experimental and Theoretical Study of the Effective Length of Embedded Scintillator Materials in End-Constructed Optical Fiber Radiation Sensing Probes" Sensors 25, no. 21: 6704. https://doi.org/10.3390/s25216704

APA Style

Li, Y., Feng, Y., Wang, J., He, B., Chen, Z., Yang, H., Shi, Q., Hao, W., Qian, J., Luo, J., Cui, J., Liu, Y., Geng, T., Lewis, E., & Sun, W. (2025). An Experimental and Theoretical Study of the Effective Length of Embedded Scintillator Materials in End-Constructed Optical Fiber Radiation Sensing Probes. Sensors, 25(21), 6704. https://doi.org/10.3390/s25216704

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