Speaker
Prof.
Panagiotis Liaparinos
(Department of Biomedical Engineering, Technological Educational Institute of Athens, 12210 Athens, Greece)
Description
Abstract: Inorganic scintillating crystals are employed as radiation to light converters in most medical imaging modalities. This study presents a comparative investigation of the luminescence emission properties of LFS-3 (Zecotek Photonics Inc) and GAGG:Ce (Furukawa Co Ltd) single crystal scintillators under medical X-ray excitation. Both scintillating materials have dimensions of 10x10x10mm3 and 10x10x20mm3. The Absolute Luminescence Efficiency-AE (i.e., the light energy flux over exposure rate) and the so-called Effective Efficiency-EE (i.e., the light spectral compatibility with electronic optical sensors were investigated under X-ray excitation in the radiographic energy range from 50 to 130 kVp. The AE and the EE parameters of the examined scintillators were found to increase with the X-ray tube voltage. The maximum AE value was found equal to 41.22 E.U (1 E.U equal to μW•m-2/mR•s) for the GAGG:Ce scintillator at 130kVp X-ray tube voltage whereas for the same tube voltage the maximum AE for LFS-3 scintillator was equal to 22.29 E.U. This increased efficiency to the above X-ray voltage can be attributed to the high density of the materials, which enhances X-ray photon absorption, and their high light output. Both scintillators have higher efficiency than LSO:Ce (standard scintillator used in PET) which measured equal to 18 E.U. under the same conditions, thus LFS-3 and GAGG:Ce crystals might be considered for further research as suitable radiation detectors in medical imaging.
Acknowledgments
This research has been co-funded by the European Union (European Social Fund) and Greek national resources under the framework of the “Archimedes III: Funding of Research Groups in TEI of Athens” project of the “Education & Lifelong Learning” Operational Program.
Primary author
Dr
Ioannis Valais
(Department of Biomedical Engineering, Technological Educational Institute of Athens, 12210 Athens, Greece)
Co-authors
Dr
Athanasios Bakas
(Department of Medical Radiologic Technology, Technological Educational Institute of Athens, 12210 Athens, Greece)
Dr
Christos Michail
(Department of Biomedical Engineering, Technological Educational Institute of Athens, 12210 Athens, Greece)
Prof.
Ioannis Kandarakis
(Department of Biomedical Engineering, Technological Educational Institute of Athens, 12210 Athens, Greece)
Mr
Ioannis Seferis
(Department of Biomedical Engineering, Technological Educational Institute of Athens, 12210 Athens, Greece)
Prof.
Kostas Kourkoutas
(Department of Energy Technology,Technological Educational Institute of Athens, 12210 Athens, Greece)
Prof.
Panagiotis Liaparinos
(Department of Biomedical Engineering, Technological Educational Institute of Athens, 12210 Athens, Greece)
Dr
Stratos David
(Department of Biomedical Engineering, Technological Educational Institute of Athens, 12210 Athens, Greece)
