Advanced transparent scintillation ceramics (Gd,Lu,Y)3Al2Ga3O12:Ce, Mg for a novel generation of PET scanners

A new (Gd,Lu,Y)3Al2Ga3O12:Ce, Mg scintillation material was produced in transparent ceramic form for the first time. 1.5-mm-thick samples for the evaluation performance test were produced from coprecipitated powders by sintering in an oxygen atmosphere at 1720 °C for 2 h. The scintillator ensures a coincidence time resolution of less than 100 ps when utilizing the silicon photo-multiplier (SiPM) readout. This finding suggest that the material is quite promising for positron emission tomographs (PET) utilizing time-off-flight (TOF) techniques for the registration of annihilation 511 keV gamma-quanta. A significantly lower production temperature, absence in the production cycle of precious metals like Ir and Pt, and high rate of crystalline mass production in the absence of high-pressure sintering in the manufacturing chain make the developed ceramic a competitor to a widely used (Lu,Y)2SiO5 single crystalline scintillator, in particular, for full-body PET scanners.