Pick-off quenching

Fraser, P.A. and Kraidy, M. (1966). The pick-off quenching of ortho-positronium in helium. Proc. Phys. Soc. 89 533-539. 

These traps, (Fig. 6) and similar effects in the motion of holes and other charges through polymers, would eventually be correlated also with such structural probes as positron lifetimes in macromolecular solids. Extensive recent studies of positron lifetime are based on positronium decay. In this, the lifetime of o-positronium (bound positron-electron pair with total spin one) is reduced from about 140 nanoseconds to a few nanoseconds by "pick-off annihilation" in which some unpaired electron spins in the medium cause conversion quenching of orthopositronium to para-positronium. The speed of the t2 effect is supposed, among other things, to represent by pick-off annihilation the presence of defects in the crystalline lattice. In any case, what amounts to empty space between molecules can then be occupied by orthopositronium.(14,15,16) It is now found in linear polyethylene, by T. T. Wang and his co-workers of Bell Laboratories(17) that there is marked shift in positron lifetimes over the temperature range of 80°K to 300°K. For... 

---