Polarized scintillator targets

The hydrogen nuclei in an organic scintillator have been polarized to more than 80% and the deuterons in its fully deuterated version to 24%. The scintillator, doped with TEMPO, has been polarized dynamically in a field of 2.5 T in a vertical dilution refrigerator in which a plastic lightguide transports the scintillation light from the sample in the mixing chamber to a photomultiplier outside the cryostat. Sizeable solid samples with acceptable optical properties and light output have been prepared and successfully operated as live polarized targets in nuclear physics experiments. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.