Use of polyethylene naphthalate as a self-vetoing structural material.

The discovery of scintillationin the blue regime from polyethylene naphthalate(PEN), a commonly used high-performance industrial polyester plastic, has sparked considerable interest from the physics community as a new type of plastic scintillatormaterial. This observation in addition to its good mechanical and radiopurity properties makes PEN an attractive candidate as an active structure scintillatorfor low-background physics experiments. This paper reports on investigations of its potential in terms of production testsof custom made tiles and various scintillationlight output measurements. These investigations substantiate the high potential of usage of PEN in low-background experiments.