SBIR-STTR Award

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

The objective of this SBIR project is to rapidly discover advanced scintillators for applications in many medical imaging detectors, using an efficient combinatorial screening process. In Phase I, we have developed and demonstrated the feasibility on a set of novel combinatorial screening tools, to rapidly synthesize large collection of scintillators in miniature forms, which accurately reproduced the crystalline phases of many well-known scintillators. In Phase II project, the unique set of efficient scintillator R&D tools will be broadly applied to search for advanced Cerium activated heavy metal oxides and halides scintillators. With the set of combinatorial scintillator tools, at least 12,000 different oxides and halides scintillators will be synthesized and characterized in the 2 year project. The specific aim is to discover a new single crystal scintillator phase with superior luminosity, faster fluorescent decay time, and lower material cost than state-of-the-art medical detector scintillator, e.g. Lu2SiO5:Ce3+.

Public Health Relevance:
Scintillator is a key detector material being used in many major medical diagnosis systems, including radiography, mammography, angiography, cardiovascular and fluoroscopic imaging, computed tomography, single photon emission computed tomography, positron emission tomography, etc. The performance of these medical systems, to a large extent, depends on the properties of scintillators, for example, scintillators with higher luminosity results in more sensitive and accurate detection of diseases at early stages which could save lives. Advanced scintillators that will be discovered in the project will significantly improve many medical imaging detectors.

Thesaurus Terms:
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