Low Cost Lu-based Scintillator Crystals for PET Scanners

描述（由申请人提供）： 正电子发射断层扫描（PET）正在成为一种越来越重要的成像模式，特别是用于癌症诊断和治疗监测。不幸的是，PET扫描仪是非常昂贵的仪器;以至于它们往往仅限于大型设施，在农村社区或发展中国家几乎不存在。PET扫描仪的主要成本驱动因素是用于检测放射性药物发射的伽马射线的闪烁体晶体。用于新一代快速、高分辨率PET系统的基于镥（Lu）的氧化物晶体的最新发展使得情况变得更糟。这些晶体的生长非常昂贵，可能占PET扫描仪成本的30%。本提案的目的是使用陶瓷到单晶的固态转化来开发基于Lu的晶体生长器的低成本晶体生长。陶瓷以高容量生产，导致每cc产出材料的低生产成本。然而，晶体生长是具有高生产成本的低得多的体积过程（特别是对于氧化物）。所提出的创新使用低成本的陶瓷加工方法，但在最后一步中，利用独特的热力学过程将陶瓷转化为单晶。由于所生产的材料的体积高得多，固态生长的加工成本预计将以比常规熔体生长低50%或甚至70%的成本产生基于Lu的制冷剂。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is becoming an increasingly important imaging modality particularly for cancer diagnosis and treatment monitoring. Unfortunately, PET scanners are extremely expensive instruments; so much so, that they tend to be limited to large facilities and are almost nonexistent in rural communities or developing nations. A major cost driver for PET scanners is the scintillator crystals used to detect gamma rays emitted by the radiopharmaceuticals. Recent development of lutetium (Lu) based oxide crystals for a new generation of fast, high-resolution PET systems has made the situation even worse. These crystals are very expensive to grow and could constitute as much as 30% of the cost of a PET scanner. The objective of the current proposal is to develop low cost crystal growth of Lu-based scintillators using solid state conversion of ceramic into single crystals. Ceramics are produced in high volume resulting in low production costs per cc of yielded material. However, crystal growth is a much lower volume process (especially for oxides) with high production costs. The proposed innovation uses low cost ceramic processing methods, but then in the last step, takes advantage of unique thermodynamic processes to convert the ceramic to a single crystal. Due to the much higher volume of material produced, the processing costs of solid state growth are expected to yield Lu-based scintillators at a 50% or even 70% lower cost than conventional melt growth.