NEW, HIGH Z SEMICONDUCTOR SENSOR FOR POSITRON TOMOGRAPHY

(改编自研究人员摘要)：正电子发射断层扫描 (PET)是一种非侵入性医学成像技术，它提供的图像 一种发射正电子的放射性药物及其在人体内的分布 身体处于新陈代谢水平。它正在成为一种重要的基本工具 用于临床诊断和医学研究。这件事的核心是 仪器是一个由伽马射线探测器组成的大型圆形阵列。这个 构建一台拥有数百台仪器的复杂性、成本和难度 这些笨重而脆弱的光电传感器是一个严重的问题。 是否有合适的固态传感器来取代 光电管和闪烁体晶体将是 高分辨率正电子断层摄影相机的设计。这样的传感器 将直接探测511kev的光子以产生电子脉冲 而不需要中间光学转换。它将是一个小型的，稳定的 构造坚固、紧凑的多探测器的装置 用于PET系统的阵列是可能的。 在辐射监测设备公司，伽马射线探测器由一种新的 研究了半导体材料溴化铊(T1Br)。 T1Br的有效Z与发芽铋(BGO)相同，BGO是主要的 用于PET的闪烁体材料，密度更高。初步 结果表明，T1BR具有低噪声、高能量的潜力 决议。这种材料的特性使它成为一种独特的 看起来具有所需特性的半导体 最后制作了一台基于半导体的PET摄像机。

(Adapted from investigator's abstract): Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is a noninvasive medical imaging technique which provides an image of a positron emitting radio pharmaceutical and its distribution in the body on a metabolic level. It is becoming an important fundamental tool for both clinical diagnosis and medical research. The heart of this instrument is a large, circular array of gamma ray detectors. The complexity, cost and difficulty of building an instrument with hundreds of these bulky and fragile photosensors is a significant problem. The availability of a suitable solid state sensor to replace the phototubes and scintillator crystals would be a major breakthrough in the design of high resolution positron tomography cameras. Such a sensor would detect the 511 keV photons directly to produce an electronic pulse without an intermediate optical conversion. It would be a small, stable device which would make construction of rugged, compact multi-detector arrays for PET systems possible. At Radiation Monitoring Devices, Inc., gamma ray detectors made from a new semi-conductor material, thallium bromide (T1Br) have been investigated. T1Br has the same effective Z as bismuth germinate (BGO), the leading scintillator material used for PET, and higher density. Preliminary results indicate T1Br has potential for low noise and high energy resolution. The properties of this material make it a unique semiconductor which appears to have the characteristics required to finally make a semiconductor based PET camera.