10
A
New Scintillator for Time-of-Flight PET—Radiation Monitoring Devices, Inc., 44 Hunt Street,
Watertown, MA 02472-4699; 617-668-6801
Dr.
Gerald Entine, Principal Investigator, GEntine@RMDInc.com
Dr.
Gerald Entine, Business Official, GEntine@RMDInc.com
DOE
Grant No. DE-FG02-05ER84299
Amount:
$750,000
Scintillation
detectors, consisting of inorganic scintillation crystals coupled to
photomultiplier tubes, are an important element of medical imaging applications
such as positron emission tomography (PET).
Yet, the performance of these systems is limited by the properties of the
currently available scintillation detectors.
If faster scintillators were available, significant advancement in image
quality could be achieved by reducing randoms and instituting time-of-flight.
This project will investigate a new scintillator that is both fast and
bright, and, as a result, promises excellent energy and timing resolution.
Reduction in scatter and randoms should lead to significant improvement
in image quality for time-of-flight PET. During
Phase I, high quality crystals of the new scintillator were produced and their
performance was evaluated, specifically for PET.
The results confirmed that the new crystals are indeed bright and fast,
and provide excellent energy and timing resolution. In
Phase II, the crystal growth will be optimized and large crystals will be
produced. Scintillation performance
of the large crystals will be evaluated in detail.
Finally, PET modules based on arrays of the new scintillator will be
assembled and evaluated.
Commercial
Applications and other Benefits as described by the awardee:
Over and
above the use in medical imaging, the new scintillators should be commercially
applicable to NDE, geological exploration, homeland security and materials
analysis. They also should be useful
in nuclear, particle, and space physics experiments.