NOVEL PHOTOSENSOR FOR SCINTILLATION CAMERAS

用于闪烁相机的新型光电传感器

• 批准号: 6549371
• 负责人: BRADLEY E PATT
• 金额: $ 10万
• 依托单位: PHOTON IMAGING, INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2002
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2002-07-01 至 2003-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6549371
• 关键词: bioengineering /biomedical engineering; biomedical equipment development; cesium; computer simulation; dielectric property; gamma radiation; nuclear medicine; photoconduction; photomultiplier; physical model; scintillation cameras; semiconduction; spectrometry

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant):The use of Photomultiplier Tubes (PMTs) in the construction of gamma cameras for nuclear medicine has been largely unchanged since the 1950's. Recently there has been an intensive effort by several groups including ourselves to develop various types of solid state gamma cameras because they offer vast improvements in performance, size and weight, and cost. To date gamma cameras based on solid state detectors have not achieved all of these goals because of basic limitations of the solid-state detector technologies explored so far. The performance of solid-state photodetectors is limited by noise due to their capacitance and leakage current. We have made significant progress on the development of silicon drift photodetectors (SDPs) for direct replacement of the PMT's in Anger cameras. The main advantage of these new detectors is their extremely small capacitance (independent of detector size) and low noise. However until now these devices have needed a large amount of cooling (deltaT=50 degrees C). During the proposed Phase I effort we propose to investigate a significant innovation in drift detector design that adds internal gain to the drift detector. This mitigates leakage current noise so that the new devices do not have to be cooled. We propose to fabricate test structures showing the feasibility of the approach in Phase I and to finalize the technology during Phase II. This technology will result in vastly superior performance and low cost compared to other technologies such as APDs, PIN diodes, proposed as PMT replacements in the past. These novel devices will be assembled into a 20cm diameter prototype Anger camera during Phase II. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: This technology has potential for replacement of photomultiplier tubes used in conjunction with scintillation crystals for gamma-ray spectroscopy, nuclear medical imaging, photon counting, etc. The overall market for the instrumentation in these areas is in the billions of dollars. The portion of this market addressed by this technology is in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

描述(申请人提供)：光电倍增管(PMT)在建造核医学伽马相机中的使用自20世纪50年代S以来基本没有变化。最近，包括我们在内的几个小组加紧努力开发各种类型的固态伽马相机，因为它们在性能、尺寸、重量和成本方面都有很大的改进。到目前为止，基于固态探测器的伽马相机没有实现所有这些目标，因为到目前为止探索的固态探测器技术的基本限制。由于其电容和漏电流，固态光电探测器的性能受到噪声的限制。我们已经在开发硅漂移光电探测器(SDP)方面取得了重大进展，用于直接取代愤怒相机中的PMT。这些新探测器的主要优点是其极小的电容(与探测器大小无关)和低噪声。然而，到目前为止，这些设备需要大量的冷却(增量T=50摄氏度)。 在拟议的第一阶段工作中，我们建议研究漂移检测器设计中的一项重大创新，即向漂移检测器添加内部增益。这减轻了泄漏电流噪声，因此新器件不必冷却。我们建议在第一阶段制作测试结构，证明该方法的可行性，并在第二阶段完成技术。与过去被建议作为PMT替代品的APDS、PIN二极管等其他技术相比，这项技术将带来更高的性能和更低的成本。这些新设备将在第二阶段组装成直径20厘米的愤怒相机原型。 拟议的商业应用：这项技术有可能取代与闪烁晶体一起使用的光电倍增管，用于伽马射线光谱分析、核医学成像、光子计数等。这些领域的仪器设备的总市场价值高达数十亿美元。这项技术在这个市场所占的份额高达数亿美元。