NOVEL PHOTOSENSOR FOR SCINTILLATION CAMERAS

用于闪烁相机的新型光电传感器

• 批准号: 6549371
• 负责人: BRADLEY E PATT
• 金额: $ 10万
• 依托单位: PHOTON IMAGING, INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2002
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2002-07-01 至 2003-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6549371
• 关键词: bioengineering /biomedical engineering; biomedical equipment development; cesium; computer simulation; dielectric property; gamma radiation; nuclear medicine; photoconduction; photomultiplier; physical model; scintillation cameras; semiconduction; spectrometry

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant):The use of Photomultiplier Tubes (PMTs) in the construction of gamma cameras for nuclear medicine has been largely unchanged since the 1950's. Recently there has been an intensive effort by several groups including ourselves to develop various types of solid state gamma cameras because they offer vast improvements in performance, size and weight, and cost. To date gamma cameras based on solid state detectors have not achieved all of these goals because of basic limitations of the solid-state detector technologies explored so far. The performance of solid-state photodetectors is limited by noise due to their capacitance and leakage current. We have made significant progress on the development of silicon drift photodetectors (SDPs) for direct replacement of the PMT's in Anger cameras. The main advantage of these new detectors is their extremely small capacitance (independent of detector size) and low noise. However until now these devices have needed a large amount of cooling (deltaT=50 degrees C). During the proposed Phase I effort we propose to investigate a significant innovation in drift detector design that adds internal gain to the drift detector. This mitigates leakage current noise so that the new devices do not have to be cooled. We propose to fabricate test structures showing the feasibility of the approach in Phase I and to finalize the technology during Phase II. This technology will result in vastly superior performance and low cost compared to other technologies such as APDs, PIN diodes, proposed as PMT replacements in the past. These novel devices will be assembled into a 20cm diameter prototype Anger camera during Phase II. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: This technology has potential for replacement of photomultiplier tubes used in conjunction with scintillation crystals for gamma-ray spectroscopy, nuclear medical imaging, photon counting, etc. The overall market for the instrumentation in these areas is in the billions of dollars. The portion of this market addressed by this technology is in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

描述（由申请人提供）：自1950年代以来，在核医学伽马摄像机构建伽马摄像机中的使用（PMTS）在很大程度上一直保持不变。最近，包括我们自己在内的几个小组进行了大量努力，以开发各种类型的固态伽马相机，因为它们在性能，大小和体重和成本方面提供了巨大的改善。迄今为止，基于固态探测器的伽马摄像机尚未实现所有这些目标，因为迄今为止探索的固态检测器技术的基本局限性。由于固态光电探测器的性能受到噪声的限制，由于其电容和泄漏电流。我们在开发硅漂移光电探测器（SDP）方面取得了重大进展，以直接在愤怒摄像机中直接替换PMT。这些新探测器的主要优点是它们极小的电容（独立于检测器的大小）和低噪声。但是到目前为止，这些设备需要大量冷却（Deltat = 50度C）。 在拟议的第一阶段努力中，我们建议研究漂移探测器设计中的重大创新，从而为漂移探测器增加内部增益。这会减轻泄漏电流噪声，因此不必冷却新设备。我们建议制造测试结构，显示I阶段中方法的可行性，并在II期期间完成技术。与过去提议的APD，PIN二极管等其他技术相比，这项技术将导致较高的性能和低成本。在II期期间，这些新型设备将组装成直径为20厘米的原型愤怒相机。 拟议的商业应用：该技术具有与闪烁晶体相结合的光电倍增管的潜力，用于伽玛射线光谱，核医学成像，光子计数等。这些区域中该仪器的总体市场是数十亿美元。该技术解决的这个市场的部分是数亿美元。