  A novel plastic scintillator, referred to as J-PET scintillator, has been
developed for the application in the digital positron emission tomography
(PET). The novelty of the concept lies in application of the
2-(4-styrylphenyl)benzoxazole as a wavelength shifter. To date, the chemical
compound has not been used as scintillator additive. A role of wavelength
shifter is to shift the scintillation spectrum towards longer wavelengths
making it more suitable for applications in scintillators of long strips
geometry because of larger attenuation length, and light detection with digital
silicon photomultipliers. In the thesis method of scintillators development and
characterization of their properties are presented as well as synthesis method
of the novel wavelength shifter. The optimal concentration of the novel
wavelength shifter was established by maximizing the light output. Performance
of scintillator, considering light emission spectrum, light emission
efficiency, rising and decay times of the scintillation pulses were analyzed
and compared to state of the art commercially available plastic scintillators.
Structure of J-PET scintillators was studied and discussed.
