Overview
The SPA technique is dependent on the energy conversion of radioactive decay, which releases light photons which can be detected via the use of some devices such as the photomultiplier tubes of scintillation counters or CCD imagers. This is a very popular technique in practices that require detecting and quantifying radioactivity.
The process of converting radioactivity to light requires a liquid medium of scintillation combination consisting soluble organic scintillators and organic solvents. During the process of radioactive decay, a beta particle will be released. While this particle travels in the medium, the energy it possesses is dissipated as it collides with the surrounding molecules in the solvent, exciting them while doing so. The excited molecules will transfer the energy they now possess to the scintillator molecules, where the energy will be emitted as light.
Read more about this topic: Scintillation Proximity Assay