[RadioAstronomer]

Back when I was in school, I used a scintillator membrane to convert ion impacts into light flashes so we could count fragmentation products from collision-induced dissociation.

Scintillators are also used to detect Alpha, Beta, Gama, and Neutrons. :-) Converts them into tiny flashes of light which a photomultiplier tube then can count.

[Chemist_Geek]

Scintillators are also used to detect Alpha, Beta, Gama, and Neutrons. :-)

Yeah, but those weigh a heck of a lot less than a Sc⁺ ion, much less a Zn⁺, especially those gammas...

How did we get to talking about my thesis instrument? Oh, yeah, scintillation. Anyway, so electromagnetic radiation suffers from frequency-dependent losses in interstellar space. What's absorbing it? The energy has to go somewhere.