Ceramic Scintillators

Abstract

▪ Abstract Scintillators are the primary radiation sensor in many applications such as medical diagnostics, medical radiographs, and industrial component inspection. Some of the limitations in the properties of single-crystal scintillators are discussed for imaging applications, and the advantages of a new class of polycrystalline ceramic scintillators are described in detail. After the important scintillator properties of transparency, X-ray stopping power, light output, primary speed, luminescent afterglow, and radiation damage are described, the processing and performance of ceramic scintillators (Y,Gd)2O3:Eu,Pr; Gd2O2S:Pr,Ce,F; and Gd3Ga5O12:Cr,Ce are discussed. Ceramic scintillator uses and trends are presented in light of issues related to their uses in advanced medical and industrial X-ray detectors for CT imaging applications. Finally, some of the challenges are given for successfully developing a polycrystalline ceramic scintillator for use in photon-counting applications.

Compendium of Material Composition Data for Radiation Transport Modeling

“…The following data were calculated from the input weight fractions. Greskovich and Duclos (1997). Also called gadolinium sulfoxylate or GOS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadolinium_oxysulfide).…”

Investigation of Ce-doped Gd2Si2O7 as a scintillator material

“…Tokanai et al also applied thin GSO single crystals to a position-sensitive detector for cold neutrons and described that position resolution would be improved using thinner GSO [11]. Another candidate of Gd-based scintillators is Gd 2 O 2 S (GOS), which is used in X-ray detection [12][13][14]. Although GOS has greater light output, its decay time of 4 μs is too long for application for neutron detection, which requires at least 1 × 10 6 cps count rate [15].…”

CTmod—A toolkit for Monte Carlo simulation of projections including scatter in computed tomography

“…In a conventional CT, the thickness of a solid state scintillator is selected so that it stops at least 95% photons in the energy range from 30 to 120 keV [36]. An example of a highly absorbing detector element is a 3 mm thick infinite slab of the ceramic scintillator Y 1.34 Gd 0.6 Eu 0.06 O 3 [36,37], also known as (Y,Gd) 2 O 3 :Eu, whose energy absorption efficiency function for perpendicularly impinging photons is in figure 9. Note that discontinuities at energy levels of K and L-edges of gadolinium and yttrium are due to the escape of characteristic radiation which does not contribute to the energy imparted to the detector.…”