SBIR Phase I: New Sensors for Biological Instrumentation

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will undertake a study of new materials that will find application as scintillation detectors in nuclear medicine instrumentation (PET and SPECT imaging). Work will progress by starting with rare earth halide compositions that are known to be good scintillators and consider related compositions that can possibly optimize their performance. By combining the two materials with similar physical properties (such as crystal structure, density and lattice parameters) it is possible to create compositions that have an engineered bandgap. Work of this type is commonly seen with semiconductors but rarely utilized for an application such as this. Bandgap is a critical scintillator property because of how it directly affects light output. This project will examine how known scintillators can be modified, through bandgap engineering, such that more desirable properties can be obtained. Rapid, successive measurements are planned. Aiding in the effort will be a team from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab with extensive experience in this promising field. An underlying aspect of this work in detector technology is that because it is developing tools, the work will ultimately be applied to many fields. Scintillators developed for medicine can readily benefit scientific research; can increase industrial productivity via product evaluation Technologies; and serve the Nation's growing security needs. By creating better tools for medicine, the Nation benefits from more accurate medical images, leading to earlier diagnosis and better tracking of treatments. Similarly applied to other fields, improving the quality of radiation detectors leads to faster measurements through greater accuracy, larger coverage areas that allow for new imaging applications, and increased penetration into new markets by making the detectors more versatile.