Performance comparison between ceramic Ce:GAGG and single crystal Ce:GAGG with digital-SiPM

Abstract

GAGG) is a new inorganic scintillator known for its attractive properties such as high light yield, stopping power and relatively fast decay time. In this study, we fabricated a ceramic Ce:GAGG scintillator as a cost-effective alternative to single crystal Ce:GAGG and, for the first time, investigated their performances when coupled to the digital silicon photomultiplier (dSiPM) -a new type of photosensor designed for applications in medical imaging, high energy and astrophysics. Compared to 3 × 3 × 2 mm 3 sized single crystal Ce:GAGG, the translucent ceramic Ce:GAGG, which has a much lower transmittance than the single crystal, was determined to give an output signal amplitude that is approximately 61% of single crystal Ce:GAGG. The energy resolution of the 511 keV annihilation peak of a 22 Na source was measured to be 9.9 ± 0.2% and 13.0 ± 0.3% for the single and ceramic scintillators respectively. On the other hand, the coincidence resolving time (CRT) of ceramic Ce:GAGG was 307 ± 23 ps, better than the 465 ± 37 ps acquired with single crystals -probably attributed to its slightly faster decay time and higher proportion of the fast decay component. The ceramic Ce:GAGG may be a promising cost-effective candidate for applications that do not require thick scintillators such as x-ray detectors and charged particle detectors, and those that require time-of-flight capabilities.

A Review of Inorganic Scintillation Crystals for Extreme Environments

“…Inorganic scintillators are primarily ionic solids and composed of high-density crystals. They can be classified into two categories (single-crystals and polycrystalline ceramics), with the former typically exhibiting better optical properties at the expense of fabrication costs [4,5]. Polycrystalline ceramics' relatively poorer optical properties (transparency) often limit their applications to lower energy radiation detection where smaller-sized scintillators can be used.…”

Simulation of novel scintillator crystals for brain PET

“…Lutetium Oxyorthosilicate (LSO) already exists in the GATE materials database [11]. The other crystals that are proposed to be used in the brain PET scanner were added to the GATE database [13][14][15][16]. The physical properties of those crystals are listed in table 2.…”

“…Table 2. Properties of the simulated crystals (obtained from [11,[13][14][15][16]). The crystals are Lutetium Oxyorthosilicate (LSO), Strontium Hafnate (SHO), Gadolinium Aluminium Gallium Garnet (GAGG), Gadolinium Yttrium Gallium Aluminium Garnet GYGAG, Gadolinium Lutetium Gallium Aluminium Garnet (GLuGAG).…”

PDOZ: innovative personal electronic dosimeter for electron and gamma H *(d) dosimetry

“…Plastic scintillators are organic scintillators while inorganic scintillators are primarily ionic solids and composed of high-density crystals. Inorganic scintillators can then be classified into two categories, single-crystals and polycrystalline ceramics, with the former typically exhibiting better optical properties at the expense of fabrication costs [5,6].…”