SBIR Phase I: Combinatorial Nano-Synthesis and Informatics for Rapid Discovery of Advanced Scintillators

小企业创新研究第一阶段项目是开发和验证一套新型组合纳米合成和信息学工具，这可以导致快速搜索和发现高效和快速的闪烁体，用于下一代探测器，具有更高的能量和时间分辨率，灵敏度，用于各种安全检查和商业应用的停止功率。闪烁体是许多利用高能光子或中子的现代安全检查系统的“眼睛”。最近对更快、更精确、更灵敏的探测器的需求推动了对重型、快速、高效和高能量分辨率的闪烁体的需求。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。本项目有两个主要创新点：1。从多个纳米层薄膜前驱体中快速沉积和合成大量不同的纳米晶体闪烁体；2. 强大的自定义闪烁体数据库，集成了数据挖掘功能和信息学，用于发现“闪烁体引线”并指导组合闪烁体过程。该项目开发的组合工艺将大大加快优质闪烁体的研发速度，并有利于安全探测器的发展。更灵敏的闪烁体将能够更准确、更快地探测到潜在的威胁。此外，先进闪烁体在现代医疗诊断系统中也有巨大的商业潜力，如数字放射照相、乳房x光摄影；透视、血管造影、SPECT、PET等。这样的医疗系统，利用先进的闪烁体作为传感器，已经在全球市场上创造了100亿美元的年收入。最后，发现的先进闪烁体可以扩散到制造和寻找自然资源的许多其他商业产品中。例如，在工业无损评价（NDE）的x射线检测系统中，更灵敏的闪烁体将能够更好、更深入地检测制造过程中的质量控制缺陷。

The Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project is to develop and validate a set of novel combinatorial nano-synthesis and informatics tools, which can lead to the rapid search and discovery of efficient and fast scintillators for next generation detectors with increased energy and temporal resolutions, sensitivity, stopping power for various security inspection and commercial applications. Scintillators are the "eyes" of many modern security inspection systems that utilize high-energy photon or neutron. The recent demands for faster, more accurate and sensitive detectors are driving the need for scintillators that are heavy, fast, efficient, and high-energy resolution. Unfortunately, no single scintillator currently known has all these desirable properties. There are 2 major innovations in this project: 1. Rapid deposition and synthesis of a large collection of different nano-crystalline scintillators from multiple nanometer-layers thin film precursors; 2. Powerful and custom scintillator database which integrates data mining functions and informatics for the discovery of "scintillator leads" and for guiding the combinatorial scintillator process. The combinatorial process developed in the project will significantly accelerate the R&D rate for superior scintillators and benefit the development of security detectors. More sensitive scintillator will enable more accurate and faster detection of potential threats. In addition, there is huge commercial potential for advanced scintillators in modern medical diagnostics systems such as digital radiography, mammography; fluoroscopic imaging, angiography, SPECT, PET etc. Such medical systems, leveraged by advanced scintillators as sensors, have combined annual revenue of $10 Billion of global market. Finally, the advanced scintillators discovered can proliferate into many other commercial products in manufacturing and in search for natural resources. For example, in X-ray inspection systems for industrial non-destructive evaluation (NDE), more sensitive scintillators will enable better and deeper detection of defects for quality control in manufacturing process.