A cost-effective high-performance ceramic garnet scintillator for PET

描述（由申请人提供）：正电子发射断层扫描（PET）扫描仪的性能在很大程度上取决于闪烁体的属性和尺寸 用于形成探测器的元件。闪烁体材料的关键特性包括其亮度、其阻止能力和其衰减时间。由于其在核医学成像中的根本重要性，以及当前闪烁体材料的局限性，对新探测器材料的研究仍然活跃。在这个建议中，我们研究了稀土石榴石，（GdxLu 1-x）3（GayAl 1-y）5 O 12：Ce（简称为GLuGAG）被用作PET探测器中的闪烁体的潜力。它具有前所未有的特性组合，包括高阻止能力（在511 keV时衰减长度为1.3 cm），高光产额（约66，000光子/MeV沉积）和快速衰减时间（约40 ns），并且与大多数其他非常明亮的闪烁体不同，它不是水分 敏感因为它具有立方晶体结构，所以也可以使用陶瓷技术制造。这使得该材料可以在较低的温度下制造，并且比传统的单晶生长更快。它还提供了直接制造所需尺寸和形状的闪烁体元件而无需切割的诱人可能性。因此，与传统的陶瓷冷却器相比，陶瓷冷却器具有产生低得多的成本材料的潜力。GLuGAG已经完成了几年的开发和表征工作，在这个阶段，可以使用陶瓷技术可靠地制造具有优异性能的材料的小样品。本提案的目标是：i）微调 ii）充分表征GLuGAG的闪烁特性; iii）按比例放大所生产的材料的体积，使得其对于完整的PET块检测器单元足够大; iv）研究以所需的尺寸和形状直接制造元件; v）表征用于PET应用的适当尺寸的GLuGAG元件在能量分辨率和定时分辨率方面的性能; vi）以及构建和评估成对的完整PET探测器模块，用于在空间分辨率、效率、能量和定时分辨率方面与现有商业探测器的性能进行比较。我们还将探索更先进的PET探测器设计，其具有用于深度编码的双端读出，以及使用大面积硅光电倍增管技术读出GLuGAG闪烁体阵列。GLuGAG出色的闪烁特性和使用陶瓷方法制造高透明度的能力（PET应用中具有合理密度的任何其他闪烁体都不具备的特征）相结合，为PET探测器设计中的成本/性能权衡带来了巨大的潜力，从而影响了PET从临床到小动物研究的所有应用。 公共卫生相关性：正电子发射断层扫描（PET）是一种广泛用于临床应用和生物医学研究的成像技术。该提案研究了一种新的闪烁探测器材料，该材料可以使用简单的陶瓷技术制造，并且有可能显着提高性能并降低为临床和研究目的设计的PET扫描仪的成本。这项研究的影响是，它可以通过降低成本来帮助PET更广泛地使用，并且还可以导致更准确的重建图像，这可能对其诊断和研究用途产生积极影响。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The performance of positron emission tomography (PET) scanners is dictated, to a large extent, by the properties and dimensions of the scintillator elements used to form the detectors. Critical properties of the scintillator material include its brightness, its stopping power and its decay time. Because of its fundamental importance in nuclear medicine imaging, and the limitations of current scintillator materials, research into new detector materials remains active. In this proposal, we study the potential for a rare-earth garnet, (GdxLu1-x)3(GayAl1-y)5O12:Ce (abbreviated as GLuGAG) to be used as a scintillator in PET detectors. It has an unprecedented combination of properties, including high stopping power (attenuation length 1.3 cm at 511 keV), high light yield (~66,000 photons/MeV deposited) and a fast decay time (~40 ns), and unlike most other very bright scintillators, it is not moisture sensitive. Because it has a cubic crystal structure, it also can be fabricated using ceramic techniques. This allows the material to be made at lower temperatures and more quickly than conventional scintillators grown as single crystals. It also offers tantalizing possibilities for directly fabricating scintillator elements in the desired size and shape with no cutting. Ceramic scintillators therefore have the potential to result in much lower cost materials compared with traditional scintillators. Several years of development and characterization work on GLuGAG has been completed and at this stage small samples of materials with excellent properties can be reliably fabricated using ceramic techniques. The goals of this proposal are to i) fine-tune the composition of GLuGAG to minimize the decay time and maximize the light output; ii) to fully characterize the scintillation properties of GLuGAG; iii) to scale up the volume of material produced such that it is large enough for a complete PET block detector unit; iv) to investigate directly fabricating elements in the size and shape required; v) to characterize the performance of GLuGAG elements of appropriate sizes for PET applications in terms of energy resolution and timing resolution; vi) and to build and evaluate pairs of complete PET detector modules for comparison against the performance of existing commercial detectors in terms of spatial resolution, efficiency, energy and timing resolution. We also will explore more advanced PET detector designs with dual-ended readout for depth- encoding, and read out of GLuGAG scintillator arrays using large-area silicon photomultiplier technology. The combination of GLuGAG's outstanding scintillation properties, and the ability to fabricate it with high transparency using ceramic approaches (a feature not shared by any other scintillator with plausible density for PET applications) offers tremendous potential to favorably and significantly shift the cost/performance trade-off in PET detector design, thereby impacting all applications of PET from the clinic through small-animal research. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Positron emission tomography (PET) is a widely used imaging technology both for clinical applications and in biomedical research. This proposal studies a new scintillation detector material that can be fabricated using straightforward ceramic techniques, and that has the potential to significantly improve the performance and lower the cost of PET scanners designed both for clinical and research purposes. The impact of this research is that it could help make PET more widely available by lowering cost, and also could lead to more accurate reconstructed images that could positively impact on its diagnostic and research uses.