Title :
Progress in the development of LuAlO3 based scintillators
Author :
Belsky, A. ; Auffray, E. ; Lecoq, P. ; Dujardin, C. ; Garnier, N. ; Canibano, H. ; Pedrini, C. ; Petrosyan, A.
Author_Institution :
CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
Abstract :
LuAlO3:Ce3+ (LuAP) and LuxY1 -xAlO3:Ce3+ (LuYAP) crystals are used as scintillation materials for positron emission tomography. The actual study of these scintillators develops in three directions: (i) growth of large size LuAP crystals with stable properties, (ii) the relationship between the composition of LuYAP crystals and scintillation properties, and (iii) scintillation mechanisms in lutetium compounds. After improving of growth conditions a large size samples (length >40 mm) have been prepared. Crystals show a good correlation between growth parameters, light yield and transmission spectra. We studied a series of samples with calibrated size (2×2×10 mm3) and compare the light yield with standard BGO and LSO samples. Mixed crystals with composition of 0.6<x<0.8 show a significant increase of light yield. We suggest that the short order clusterisation in mixed crystals may play an important role in governing the scintillation efficiency. In order to clarify the scintillation mechanism in LuAP and LuYAP crystals measurements of absorption, emission and excitation spectra, thermoluminescence and scintillation decay curves have been performed
Keywords :
crystal growth; light absorption; light transmission; lutetium compounds; positron emission tomography; scintillation; thermoluminescence; LuxY1-xAlO3:Ce3+; LuAP; LuAlO3:Ce; LuAlO3:Ce3+; LuY-AlO3:Ce; LuYAP; PET; absorption spectra; crystal growth; emission spectra; excitation spectra; light yield; positron emission tomography; scintillation; scintillation decay curves; scintillation efficiency; short order clusterisation; thermoluminescence; transmission spectra; Absorption; Crystalline materials; Crystals; Mechanical factors; Performance evaluation; Positron emission tomography;
Conference_Titel :
Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record, 2000 IEEE
Conference_Location :
Lyon
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-6503-8
DOI :
10.1109/NSSMIC.2000.949108
