Combinatorial Search of Advanced Scintillators for Medical Imaging Systems

描述（由申请人提供）：闪烁体是许多现代医学成像诊断系统的“眼睛”，其性能在很大程度上取决于闪烁体的选择。在嘈杂的体内环境中，最近对更快（例如PET，需要纳秒的荧光衰减时间）和更敏感（例如SPECT）医学探测器的需求推动了对先进闪烁体的需求，这些闪烁体重（对高能粒子具有大的阻止能力），快（例如纳秒的荧光衰减时间和无余辉），高灵敏度（具有高量子效率）和高能量分辨率。不幸的是，目前还没有一个已知的闪烁体具有所有这些理想的特性。SBIR一期项目的目标是开发、验证和应用组合合成和高通量筛选（HTS）技术来快速发现高效、快速和重无机闪烁体，用于各种医学成像系统中的先进数字探测器，包括SPECT（单光子发射计算机断层扫描）和PET（正电子发射断层扫描）。LS技术公司将与劳伦斯伯克利国家实验室经验丰富、设备精良的医疗闪烁体研究小组合作，开发出高效的组合闪烁体合成和筛选工具，然后用最先进的闪烁体验证其准确性。随着第一阶段开发和验证的工具，将在第二阶段全面搜索具有比任何现有闪烁体整体性能优越的“理想”闪烁体，用于先进的医疗探测器应用。先进的闪烁体将显著提高现有医学成像诊断系统的速度和准确性，包括CT、PET、x射线成像等。这意味着更快、更低成本的医疗诊断，以及在早期阶段准确发现疾病。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Scintillators are the "eyes" of many modern medical imaging diagnosis systems, whose performance, to a large extent, is determined by the choice of scintillators. The recent demands for faster (e.g. from PET, which requires nanoseconds of fluorescent decay time) and more sensitive (e.g. from SPECT) medical detectors in noisy in-vivo environments, are pushing the need for discovering advanced scintillators that are heavy (with a large stopping power for high energy particles), fast (e.g. nanoseconds of fluorescent decay time and no afterglow), highly sensitive (with a high quantum efficiency), and high energy resolution. Unfortunately, no single scintillator currently known has all these desirable properties. The objective of the SBIR Phase I project is to develop, validate, and apply a combinatorial synthesis and high throughput screening (HTS) technique to the rapid discovery of efficient, fast and heavy inorganic scintillators for advanced digital detectors in various medical imaging systems, including SPECT (single photon emission computer tomography) and PET (positron emission tomography). Collaborating with the highly experienced and well-equipped medical scintillator research group in Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, LS Technologies will develop the highly efficient combinatorial scintillator synthesis and screening tools, before validating their accuracy with well known state-of-art scintillators. With the tools developed and validated in phase I, a comprehensive search of "ideal" scintillators with overall superior properties than any existing scintillator will be conducted in Phase II for advanced medical detector applications. The advanced scintillator will significantly enhance the speed and accuracy of the existing medical imaging diagnosis systems, including CT, PET, X-ray imaging, etc. That translates into a faster and lower cost of medical diagnosis, as well as accurate detection of diseases in early stages.