The International Conference on Advances in Liquid Scintillation Spectrometry (LSC2020)
was held October 18–20, 2021 in Shenzhen, China, it is the 24th edition of the LSC
series conferences which started in 1957, and the first time in China and Asia.
LSC2020 is co-organized by Shenzhen Technology University, Laser Fusion Research Center
and Southwest University of Science and Technology, and chaired by professor Ruan
Shuangchen, the President of Shenzhen Technology University, Professor Philippe Cassette
from Sofia University in Bulgaria, and Professor Gu Yuqiu from Laser Fusion Research
Center. Due to the pandemic of COVID-19, the LSC2020 conference was organized in a
combination mode of on-site and online.
Fig. 1
Opening Speech by Professor Ruan Shuangchen
Fig. 2
Closing Ceremony chaired by Professor Hou Xiaolin
There are over 240 researchers from 16 countries participated in the conference, among
them 170 participants from China and 70 scientists attended the conference on site.
Overall 84 contributions were presented in the conference, including 11 plenary, 19
invited lectures, 40 oral and 17 posters presentations. 15 sessions on the topics
of the liquid scintillator development and applications, particle detection technology,
and radionuclide metrology were organized, they are summarized in the below table.
All presentations can be found in the conference website (https://cloud.yiyum.com/?sid=1374&mid=362&v=100),
the video records of all oral presentations are available (https://cep.sztu.edu.cn/info/1019/2097.htm).
In the opening ceremony, professor Ruan Shuangchen, the president of Shenzhen Technology
University gave opening and welcome speech, Professor Philippe Cassette reviewed the
history of the LSC series conference and introduced the main topics of LSC2020, Professor
Hou Xiaolin presented the gratefulness to the local organizers for their great effort
for organizing this conference in the tough pandemic period.
Program
Session chair
Opening ceremony
Leifeng Cao
Plenary session 1–4
Leifeng Cao,
Xiaolin Hou,
Philippe Cassette,
Yuqiu Gu
Topical session 1–5: LSC applications in environmental, nuclear chemistry and others
Zhilin Chen,
Xiongxin Dai,
Tsukasa Aso,
Yuchi Wu,
Sizhong Wu
Topical session 6: LSC in particle detection
Chao Tian
Topical session 7–8: New development on LSC
Denis Bergeron,
Steffen Happel
Topical session 9: Plastic Scintillator and application
Jose F. Garcia
Topical session 10: Radionuclide Metrology Using LSC
Alex Tarancon
Closing ceremony
Xiaolin Hou
Fig. 3
Group Photo of Offline Participants of LSC-2020 Conference at Shenzhen, China
In the closing ceremony, Prof. Cao Leifeng summarized the conference progress and
achievement, Professor J.F. García, Professor Philippe Cassette and Dr. Liu Haoran
shared their experiences and feelings to the conference, they appreciated the conference
organizers for their great effort making this conference very successful and fruitful.
Finally, it was announced that the next LSC conference will be hold in 2024 in Southampton,
UK. The organizer of LSC2024, Professor Phillip Warwick from Southampton University,
introduced the preliminary planning for organizing next LSC conference in 2024.
Liquid Scintillation spectrometry (LSC) is an important radiometric technique for
measurement of radionuclides. Compared to the newly developed techniques, such as
accelerator mass spectrometry and ICP-MS, LSC technique has been developed for more
than 60 years and considered as a traditional and mature technique. However, it is
still a competitive and often used technique for the measurement of many radionuclides,
especially for the short-lived and low-energy beta and electron capture decay radionuclides,
even alpha emitters, such as 3 H, 55Fe, 89Sr, 90Sr, 93Mo, 222Rn, 241Pu, etc. The LSC
technique is still widely used not only in the nuclear science, but also many other
fields, such as environment, geology, archeology, biology, chemistry, etc. The development
and improvement in the LSC instrumentation and methodology are continued in the recent
years. Some remarkable progress on the LSC methodology has been achieved and some
of them have been presented in the LSC2020 conference. TDCR (triple-to-double coincidence
ratio) based miniature and portable LSC instruments has being developed and optimized,
application of TDCR based LSC for the Cherenkov counting and measurement of electron
capture decay radionuclides through Auger electrons were also improved and optimized.
Plastic scintillator based LSC technique has been rapidly developed in the recent
years, which can get rid of the utilization of liquid organic scintillator, but still
using the ordinary LSC instrument for measurement, the new progress on the measurement
of alpha emitters using this technique was developed and verified. Meanwhile integration
of extraction chromatographic separation and plastic scintillator makes this technique
more attractive for on-line analysis. Development on new scintillation cocktail for
improving the detection of low-energy beta emitters was also progressed. Besides the
conventional application fields of LSC such as environmental radioactivity and radio-pharmaceutics,
its applications in detection of neutrons and antineutrinos and applications in fusion
neutron spectra measurement and laser nuclear physics were highlighted and demonstrated
in the LSC2020 conference. However, there are still some challenges in the LSC methodology
and its applications. A new generation environment friendly scintillation cocktails
needs to be developed to avoid using the restricted toxic organic compounds; new techniques
for further suppressing background and improving stability of measurement for determination
of continuously decreased-level radionuclides (e.g. 3 H) in the environment (e.g.
deep seawater in open sea), and miniature LSC instrument with low background for field
measurement are expected. These aspects will drive the LSC to be developed further
for improving its competitiveness in various application fields.
Many colleagues have dedicated great contribution to make this conference finally
hold in Oct. 2021, We want to express our sincere appreciation to all members of the
organizing committee and scientific committee for their effort to prepare this conference,
the chairs of the program committee and session chairs for their fruitful work making
the conference went smoothly and successfully.
We received a numbers of full papers that presented in the LSC2020 for consideration
for publishing in the conference’s proceedings, among them, 17 full papers were selected
for publication, they are presented in this issue after reviewed by at least two independent
reviewers through JRNC’s regular review procedure. We appreciate all reviewers for
their professional review and great contribution.
Lastly, we would like to thank all the participants and sponsors for their contributions
to the conference, and looking forward to see you physically in LSC2024 in Southampton.
Guest Editors:
Shuangchen Ruan, Chair of LSC2020, Shenzhen Technology University, China.
Yuqiu Gu, Co-Chair of LSC2020, Laser Fusion Research Center, CAEP, China.
Xiaolin Hou, Chairman of Scientific committee, LSC2020, Technical University of Denmark,
Denmark.
Bo Cui, Member of Program Committee, LSC2020, Laser Fusion Research Center, CAEP,
China.
Yuna Liu, Member of Program Committee, LSC2020, Editorial Office of High Power Laser
and Particle Beams, China.
Wei Qi, Laser Fusion Research Center, CAEP, China.