Scintillation counters are usually not ideal for the detection of heavy ions for three reasons:
# the very high ionizing power of heavy ions induces quenching effects which result in a reduced light output (e.g. for equal energies, a proton will produce 1/4 to 1/2 the light of an electron, while alphas will produce only about 1/10 the light);
# the high stopping power of the particles also results in a reduction of the fast component relative to the slow component, increasing detector dead-time;
# strong non-linearities are observed in the detector response especially at lower energies.
The reduction in light output is stronger for organics than for inorganic crystals. Therefore, where needed, inorganic crystals, e.g. ,  (typically used in thin sheets as α-particle monitors), , should be preferred to organic materials. Typical applications are α-survey instruments, dosimetry instruments, and heavy ion dE/dx detectors. Gaseous scintillators have also been used in nuclear physics experiments.