Resumen
The present invention relates to a scintillator cell that can be used in a positron-emission tomography (PET) device, which cell comprises a polyhedronal monolithic scintillator material having a crystalline structure and a topology of translucent areas formed by randomly distributed points, the areas being engraved into the scintillator material using laser techniques, wherein the topology is coupled to a photodetector system. Therefore, the present invention could belong to the field of biomedical diagnostic devices, and to the field of devices for radiation detection.
Reivindicaciones
1. A scintillator cell comprising: • a polyhedronal monolithic scintillator material having a crystalline structure comprising at least one inlet face and at least one outlet face, wherein the inlet face receives an energy photon F<1> corresponding to the X ray and gamma ray region of the electromagnetic spectrum, between 1 keV and 1.2 MeV, and wherein the outer face emits lower-energy photons F<2>, between 100 nm and 990 nm, • at least one photodetector optically coupled with the outlet face of the scintillator material which detects the position, the energy and the time of arrival of F<2> and converts F<2> into an electric signal, and • a control unit connected with the photodetector which receives and processes the electric signal coming from the photodetector,characterized in that• said scintillator material has a topology of translucent areas formed by randomly distributed points therein which generates light guides between the inlet face and the outlet face, and • said photodetector is coupled with the scintillator material along the outlet face of said scintillator material. 2. The scintillator cell according to claim 1, characterized in that the topology of translucent areas formed by randomly distributed points of the scintillator material is engraved into the material by means of laser techniques. 3. The scintillator cell according to any of claims 1 or 2, characterized in that the photodetector is selected from photomultiplier tubes, avalanche photodiodes, single-photon avalanche diodes or silicon photomultipliers. 4. The scintillator cell according to any of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that the photodetector is optically coupled to a light guide, which is also optically coupled to the outlet face of the scintillator material and combines the spatial distribution of the light. 5. The scintillator cell according to any of claims 1 to 4, characterized in that the scintillator material is selected from cerium-doped gadolinium orthosilicate (GSO:Ce), cerium-doped lutetium orthosilicate (LSO:Ce), cerium-doped lutetium yttrium orthosilicate (LYSO:Ce), Gd<3>(Al,Ga)<5>O1<2>:Ce, GAGG:Ce, doped sodium iodide, cesium iodide, bismuth germanate (BGO), barium fluoride BaF<2>, europium-doped calcium fluoride CaF<2>(Eu), silver-doped zinc sulfide ZnS(Ag), calcium tungstate CaWO<4>, cadmium tungstate CdWO<4>, (Y<3>Al<5>O<12>(Ce)), cerium-doped lanthanum chloride (LaCl<3>(Ce)) and cerium-doped lanthanum bromide (LaBr<3>(Ce)). 6. The scintillator cell according to any of claims 1 to 5, characterized in that the topology of translucent areas formed by randomly distributed points in the scintillator material form a tessellation. 7. The scintillator cell according to claim 6, characterized in that the topology of translucent areas formed by randomly distributed points in the scintillator material is selected from a truncated hexagonal tessellation, a trihexagonal tessellation, a truncated square tessellation, a trihexagonal tessellation, a truncated hexagonal tessellation and a tessellation formed by curved sections. 8. The scintillator cell according to claim 6, characterized in that the topology of translucent areas formed by randomly distributed points in the scintillator material is defined depending on an optimization factor of the detector by means of a geodesic or Euclidean criterion which allows performing a virtual segmentation of the monolithic scintillator crystal. 9. The scintillator cell according to claim 6, characterized in that the topology of translucent areas formed by randomly distributed points in the scintillator material is selected from a Voronoi tessellation, a Dirichlet tessellation and a tessellation in Delaunay triangulations.
