Nanophotonic scintillators for high-energy particles detection, imaging, and spectroscopy

Abstract

Several new techniques for designing nanophotonic scintillators which lead to optimal performance and novel functionalities. Important design concepts include the use of absorbing structures inspired by solar cells, angularly-selective structures, and metasurfaces. Scintillators based on conventionally overlooked materials (such as GaAs or GaN) are also disclosed, which are designed to reach efficiencies comparable or superior to state-of-the-art conventional scintillators (such as YAG:Ce and LYSO). Such scintillators provide important enhancement of scintillation yield arising from incorporation of nanophotonic patterns. Additionally, nanophotonic scintillators designed in conjunction with image post processing algorithms (such as deconvolution algorithms, tomographic reconstruction, etc.) are disclosed. These scintillators are designed in order to increase robustness, minimize the required dose/scan time or even the number of scans required in scintillation imaging. These new designs optimize the scintillator for optimal reconstruction.