Novel Very Large Scintillator Crystal Growth Method

Scintillators have been used in radiation detection applications including medical imaging, oil well drilling, and high energy physics experiments. The new security need for scintillators has changed the market dynamics from specialty niche to volume production. In this program, Nanotrons proposes a manufacturing method that potentially produces scintillator of very large size and high crystal quality at unprecedentedly low cost to meet the new demand. Our process is a novel simple process that grows large-size single crystal ingots by continuous solidification from a seed crystal without any moving parts. Due to the simplicity, the proposed process has salient advantages of large size and low cost. Without movements, the new process also prevents secondary nucleation and ensuring very low strain in the grown crystal. Phase I will demonstrate the feasibility.