Optimisation of monolithic nanocomposite and transparent ceramic scintillation detectors for positron emission tomography

Abstract

High-resolution arrays of discrete monocrystalline scintillators used for gamma photon coincidence detection in pet are costly and complex to fabricate, and exhibit intrinsically non-uniform sensitivity with respect to emission angle. nanocomposites and transparent ceramics are two alternative classes of scintillator materials which can be formed into large monolithic structures, and which, when coupled to optical photodetector arrays, may offer a pathway to low cost, high-sensitivity, high-resolution pet. However, due to their high optical attenuation and scattering relative to monocrystalline scintillators, these materials exhibit an inherent trade-off between detection sensitivity and the number of scintillation photons which reach the optical photodetectors. in this work, a method for optimising scintillator thickness to maximise the probability of locating the point of interaction of 511 keV photons in a monolithic scintillator within a specified error bound is proposed and evaluated for five nanocomposite materials (LaBr 3 :ce-polystyrene, Gd 2 o 3-polyvinyl toluene, LaF 3 :ce-polystyrene, LaF 3 :Ce-oleic acid and YAG:Ce-polystyrene) and four ceramics (GAGG:Ce, GLuGAG:Ce, GYGAG:Ce and LuAG:Pr). LaF 3 :Ce-polystyrene and GLuGAG:Ce were the best-performing nanocomposite and ceramic materials, respectively, with maximum sensitivities of 48.8% and 67.8% for 5 mm localisation accuracy with scintillator thicknesses of 42.6 mm and 27.5 mm, respectively. Detection of high-energy photons for positron emission tomography (PET) is inherently challenging due to their highly penetrating nature. Solid-state detectors are unable to directly detect such photons with high efficiency, due to the limited detector thickness (typically <1 mm) and low density and effective atomic number of most semiconductors 1,2. To increase sensitivity to high energy photons, in most applications it is necessary to optically couple a photodetector to a scintillator. When a high-energy photon deposits energy in the scintillator, the energy is absorbed by dopant atoms (commonly cerium, europium or thallium) and re-radiated as multiple lower-energy photons-typically in the optical range-which can be detected by a solid-state photodetector or photomultiplier tube 3. Many excellent scintillator materials are now available, including some with good sensitivity to high energy photons due to their high density and effective atomic number 3,4. The best of these also provide high light output, good energy resolution and fast decay time, and scintillate at wavelengths which are compatible with semiconductor photodetectors 3-5. Conventionally, high spatial resolution PET requires the use of a large number of very small, discrete, optically isolated scintillator crystals, either individually coupled to a photodetector cell or multiplexed via some sort of light-sharing scheme. High gamma photon sensitivity requires a large radial scintillator thickness, while maintaining a uniformly high spatial resolution across the field of view requires very narrow cryst...

CombinedDFTand wave function theory approach to excited states of lanthanide luminescent materials: A case study ofLaF3:Ce3+

“…We select LaF 3 :Ce 3+ as the test bed. LaF 3 is widely used as the host material for scintillators and upconversion phosphors [53,54] . It is based on this material that the famous Dieke diagram [55] for trivalent rare earth ions energy levels is built [56] .…”