Fig. 2: Characterization of the plastic scintillator.

a Normalized ion beam-induced luminescence (IBIL) spectra of scintillators based on PSS100 and PVP-MPS matrices, collected at fluences of about 5 × 10⁸ H⁺ s⁻¹ at 2 MeV (left axes, the experimental setup is reported in Supplementary Fig. 3). Comparison with the UV–vis absorbance spectrum of the DNTT (right axes). b Pictures of PVP-MPS siloxane scintillator (left) and commercial EJ-212 (right) under different bending conditions: the elastic siloxane undergoes severe deformation without cracking under negligible applied stress, whereas the EJ-212 of the same thickness must be strained in an iron grip to achieve a barely visible curvature. The reader can refer to Supplementary Table 2 for further information on the base matrix features. c Scintillation pulse height spectra of PSS100 (red line) and PVP-MPS (green line) scintillators. The spectrum of EJ212 (blue line) is shown for comparison. d Response measured with a power meter of the different scintillators at repeated shots in the same spot with alternating high and low 5 MeV proton beam fluxes, as indicated in correspondence of the bars. The values measured for EJ-212 are also shown for comparison.