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Novel Scintillator for
Dr. Michael R. Squillante,
Dr. Gerald Entine, Business
Official, gentine@rmdinc.com
DOE Grant No. DE-FG02-04ER84057
Amount: $750,000
Positron emission tomography (PET) is a powerful imaging
tool that can provide diagnosis for symptoms of diseases such as cancer,
Alzheimer's disease, head trauma and stroke.
However, the performance of current clinical PET systems is limited by
available detector technology, and there is an urgent need for improvement in
PET instrumentation, in order to exploit the full potential of this promising
technique. This project will develop a
new detector material for PET that shows high
light output, fast response and high sensitivity, leading to a detector with high
energy and timing resolution. Other
benefits include significantly reduced scatter and randoms, the main
limitations in three-dimensional PET, and the possibility of time-of-flight PET
imaging. During
Phase I, crystals of the new scintillation material were grown and their
scintillation properties were measured.
These crystals showed exceptionally high light output, fast response,
and excellent energy and timing resolution.
During Phase II , larger crystals of the proposed scintillation material
will be grown. The light output, decay
time, and energy and timing resolution of these large crystals will be
determined as a function of the doping level.
Arrays will be built using the new scintillation crystals and PET
modules will be assembled and tested using these arrays.
Commercial
Applications and Other Benefits as described by the awardee: The detector
technology should be very promising for