Siemens Medical Solutions Usa, Inc.

The United States of America As Represented by the United States

University of Tennessee Research Foundation

Csi Technology, Inc.

A Andrew Carey

Mark S Andreaco

Peter Carl Cohen

Piotr Szupryczynski

Matthias J Schmand

Volker Matschl

Ronald Grazioso

Christian J Michel

Johannes Breuer

Maurizio Conti

Larry Byars

Rainer Paul

Charles L Melcher

Merry A Koschan

Brant Quinton

Joel T Shor

Xinli Liu

Mong Ching Lin

John W Mountain

The present disclosure discloses rare earth metal halide scintillators compositions with reduced hygroscopicity. Compositions in specific implementations include three group of elements: Lanthanides, (La, Ce, Lu, Gd or V), elements in group 17 of the periodic table of elements (CI, Br and I) and elements of group 13 (B, AI, Ga, In, TI), and any combination of these elements. Examples of methods for making the compositions are also disclosed.

Rare-earth metal halide scintillators with reduced hygroscopicity and method of making the same

Apparatuses, computer-readable mediums, and methods are provided. In one embodiment, a positron emission tomography ('PET') detector array is provided which includes a plurality of crystal elements arranged in a two-dimensional checkerboard configuration. In addition, there are empty spaces in the checkerboard configuration. In various embodiments, the empty spaces are filled with passive shielding, transmission source assemblies, biopsy instruments, surgical instruments, and/or electromagnetic sensors. In various embodiments, the crystal elements and the transmission source assemblies simultaneously perform emission/transmission acquisitions.

PET scanner with emission and transmission structures in a checkerboard configuration

The present disclosure discloses, in one arrangement, a scintillator material made of a metal halide with one or more additional group-13 elements. An example of such a compound is Ce:LaBrwith thallium (Tl) added, either as a codopant or in a stoichiometric admixture and/or solid solution between LaBrand TlBr. In another arrangement, the above single crystalline iodide scintillator material can be made by first synthesizing a compound of the above composition and then forming a single crystal from the synthesized compound by, for example, the Vertical Gradient Freeze method. Applications of the scintillator materials include radiation detectors and their use in medical and security imaging.

Metal halide scintillators with reduced hygroscopicity and method of making the same

A halide material, such as scintillator crystals of LaBr:Ce and SrI:Eu, with a passivation surface layer is disclosed. The surface layer comprises one or more halides of lower water solubility than the scintillator crystal that the surface layer covers. A method for making such a material is also disclosed. In certain aspects of the disclosure, a passivation layer is formed on a surface of a halide material such as a scintillator crystal of LaBr:Ce of SrI:Eu by fluorinating the surface with a fluorinating agent, such as Ffor LaBr:Ce and HF for SrI:Eu.

Passivation of metal halide scintillators

A method for making a rare-earth oxyorthosilicate scintillator single crystal includes growing a single crystal from a melt of compounds including a rare-earth element (such as Lu), silicon and oxygen, a compound including a rare-earth activator (such as Ce), and a compound of a Group-7 element (such as Mn). The method further includes selecting an scintillation performance parameter (such as decay), and based on the scintillation performance parameter to be achieved, doping activator and Group-7 element at predetermined levels, or relative levels between the two, so as to achieve stable growth of the single-crystalline scintillator material from the melt.

Rare-earth oxyorthosilicates with improved growth stability and scintillation characteristics

A mixed halide scintillator material including a fluoride is disclosed. The introduction of fluorine reduces the hygroscopicity of halide scintillator materials and facilitates tuning of scintillation properties of the materials.

Mixed halide scintillators

Disclosed are a method of growing a rare-earth oxyorthosilicate crystal and a crystal grown using the method. A melt is prepared by melting a first substance including at least one rare-earth element and a second substance including at least one element from group 7 of the periodic table. A seed crystal is brought into contact with the surface of the melt and withdrawn to grow the crystal.

Suppression of crystal growth instabilities during production of rare-earth oxyorthosilicate crystals

A method and device for improving the optical performance (such as time resolution) of scintillation detectors using the optical bleaching technique are disclosed. Light of a selected wavelength is emitted by a light source into a scintillator. The wavelength is selected to meet the minimum energy requirement for releasing of charge carriers captured by the charge carrier traps in the scintillation material. Trap-mediated scintillation components are thus reduced by optical bleaching and the optical performance of the scintillator crystal and the detector is enhanced.

Radiation detection utilizing optical bleaching

A method of making LSO scintillators with high light yield and short decay times is disclosed. In one arrangement, the method includes codoping LSO with cerium and another dopant from the IIA or IIB group of the periodic table of elements. The doping levels are chosen to tune the decay time of scintillation pulse within a broader range (between about &#x2dc;30 ns up to about &#x2dc;50 ns) than reported in the literature, with improved light yield and uniformity. In another arrangement, relative concentrations of dopants are chosen to achieve the desired light yield and decay time while ensuring crystal growth stability.

Rare-earth oxyorthosilicate scintillator crystals and method of making rare-earth oxyorthosilicate scintillator crystals

LSO scintillation crystals with improved scintillation and optical properties are achieved by controlled co-doping a LSO crystal melt with amounts of cerium and an additional codopant such as calcium or other divalent cations. Crystal growth atmosphere is optimized by controlling the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere. Zinc is added as an additional material to restabilize crystal growth where calcium co-dopant is added. The decay time of the scintillation crystal can be controlled by controlling the concentration of co-dopant added.

Lutetium oxyorthosilicate scintillator having improved scintillation and optical properties and method of making the same

A phantom for use in quality control measurement of a fully integrated magnetic resonance/PET scanner is disclosed. The phantom features radiation activity distributed throughout an electrically conductive binder. Suitably, the binder is elastomeric and includes carbon fibers distributed throughout it to set the conductivity of the phantom to a desired level. The phantom is applicable to various multimodality integrated medical imaging systems such as MR/SPECT and MR/CT in addition to MR/PET.

Electro-conductive pet phantom for MR/PET quality control measurement

A phantom for use in generating a normalization data set to be used in PET scanning (particularly integrated MR/PET scanning) is disclosed. The phantom features radiation activity distributed throughout a foam material. The foam&#x2014;e.g., a polyurethane foam&#x2014;may be produced by reacting two liquids, one of which is emulsified with water in which Gehas been dissolved. The foam produced thereby exhibits uniform distribution of radioactivity and a long mean free path for 511 keV gamma particles&#x2014;two attributes that are important attributes of a PET phantom.

Low-scattering foam phantom for molecular imaging

Solid particles combined with a water contaminated oil sample are counted by an optical particle counter. The contaminated oil sample is mixed at a substantially 1:1 ratio with a water masking solvent comprising about one part isopropanol and about three parts toluene. The oil and solvent mixture is passed through a transparent viewing volume between a light source and a light detector for detection and counting of oil suspended solid particles.

Growing community of inventors

Lenoir City, TN, United States of America

A Andrew Carey