PHOTON – An optical Monte Carlo code for simulating scintillation detector responses

A Monte Carlo code, PHOTON, has been developed to simulate optical photon transport in scintillation detectors. The code supports arbitrarily complex geometry models, flexible models for material and surface properties specification, detailed treatment of complex refractive index materials, thin-film surface coatings and interactive simulation with graphical display. This paper concentrates on the photon transport simulation and a simple benchmarking study, comparing the experimental and calculated light yields from a rectangular plastic scintillator block.