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。最近的需求更快（例如，来自PET，其需要纳秒的荧光衰减时间）并且更灵敏（例如，来自SPECT）医学探测器在嘈杂的体内环境中的应用，正在推动对发现重型的先进的闪烁器的需求。（对高能粒子有很大的阻止力），快（例如，纳秒的荧光衰减时间并且没有余辉）、高度灵敏（具有高量子效率）和高能量分辨率。不幸的是，目前已知的单个闪烁体不具有所有这些期望的性质。SBIR第一阶段项目的目标是开发，验证和应用组合合成和高通量筛选（HTS）技术，以快速发现用于各种医学成像系统（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））中先进数字探测器的高效，快速和重型无机闪烁体。LS Technologies与劳伦斯伯克利国家实验室经验丰富、设备齐全的医用闪烁体研究小组合作，将开发高效的组合闪烁体合成和筛选工具，然后使用知名的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，全面搜索“理想”闪烁体的整体上级性能优于任何现有的闪烁体将在第二阶段进行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，更低的医疗诊断成本，以及早期疾病的准确检测。

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.