The uniformity and imaging properties of some new ceramic scintillators

George T. L. Chac; Brian W. Miller; Kanai Shah; Gary Baldoni; Kenneth J. Domanik; Vaibhav Bora; Nerine J. Cherepy; Zachary Seeley; H. Bradford Barber

doi:10.1117/12.966670

17 October 2012 The uniformity and imaging properties of some new ceramic scintillators

George T. L. Chac, Brian W. Miller, Kanai Shah, Gary Baldoni, Kenneth J. Domanik, Vaibhav Bora, Nerine J. Cherepy, Zachary Seeley, H. Bradford Barber

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 8508, Medical Applications of Radiation Detectors II; 85080H (2012) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.966670
Event: SPIE Optical Engineering + Applications, 2012, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

Results are presented of investigations into the composition, uniformity and gamma-ray imaging performance of new ceramic scintillators with synthetic garnet structure. The ceramic scintillators were produced by a process that uses flame pyrolysis to make nanoparticles which are sintered into a ceramic and then compacted by hot isostatic compression into a transparent material. There is concern that the resulting ceramic scintillator might not have the uniformity of composition necessary for use in gamma-ray spectroscopy and gamma-ray imaging. The compositional uniformity of four samples of three ceramic scintillator types (GYGAG:Ce, GLuGAG:Ce and LuAG:Pr) was tested using an electron microprobe. It was found that all samples were uniform in elemental composition to the limit of sensitivity of the microprobe (few tenths of a percent atomic) over distance scales from ~ 1 cm to ~ 1 um. The light yield and energy resolution of all ceramic scintillator samples were mapped with a highly collimated 57Co source (122 keV) and performance was uniform at mapping scale of 0.25 mm. Good imaging performance with single gamma-ray photon detection was demonstrated for all samples using a BazookaSPECT system, and the imaging spatial resolution, measured as the FWHM of a LSF was 150 um.

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George T. L. Chac, Brian W. Miller, Kanai Shah, Gary Baldoni, Kenneth J. Domanik, Vaibhav Bora, Nerine J. Cherepy, Zachary Seeley, and H. Bradford Barber "The uniformity and imaging properties of some new ceramic scintillators", Proc. SPIE 8508, Medical Applications of Radiation Detectors II, 85080H (17 October 2012); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.966670

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