Systematic Investigation of LED Stimulated Recovery From Radiation-Induced Damage in Optical Materials

The optical materials including scintillators, glasses and crystals are commonly used as active or support media in collider detectors and in beam-lines of various scientific facilities. When subjected to high levels of radiation, the optical materials exhibit loss of transmittance which degrades their overall performance. If the radiation exposure is stopped, the optical materials can gradually recover from radiation damage. The recovery can also be accelerated by LED stimulation, which provides a potential option for in-situ recovery systems from radiation damage in large-scale detector systems. On the other hand, a systematic study of the recovery from radiation damage as a function of the LED stimulation parameters has not been conducted to date. In order to respond to this need, we irradiated soda lime glass samples to 3.5 kGy and 7.0 kGy total doses and inspected their recovery from radiation damage under different LED stimulation conditions for an extended period. Here we report on the irradiation and recovery setups in detail and report on the dynamic recovery from radiation damage for various LED stimulation scenarios.