Search of new scintillation materials for nuclear medicine applications

Oxide crystals have a great potential to develop new advanced scintillation materials which are dense, fast, and bright. This combination of parameters, when combined with an affordable price, gives a prospect for materials to be applied in nuclear medicine devices. Some of them have been developed in the last two decades along the line of rear-earth (RE) garnet (RE/sub 3/Al/sub 5/O/sub 12/) oxiorthosilicate (RE/sub 2/SiO/sub 5/) and perovskite (REAlO/sub 3/) crystals doped with Ce ions. Among recently developed oxide materials the lead tungstate scintillator (PWO) has become the most used scintillation material in high-energy physics experiments due to its application in CMS and ALICE experiments at LHC. Here, the authors discuss scintillation properties of some new heavy compounds doped with Ce as well as light yield improvement of PWO crystals as applied in low-energy physics and nuclear medicine.