US 10,150,914 B2Granted

Ceramic phoswich with fused optical elements, method of manufacture thereof and articles comprising the same

AssigneeSiemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc.

InventorsRobert A. Mintzer, Peter Carl Cohen, Mark S. Andreaco, Matthias J. Schmand

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Abstract

Disclosed herein is a scintillator comprising a plurality of garnet compositions in a single block having the structural formula (1): M1aM2bM3cM4dO12 (1) where O represents oxygen, M1, M2, M3, and M4 represents a first, second, third and fourth metal that are different from each other, where the sum of a+b+c+d is about 8, where “a” has a value of 2 to 3.5, “b” has a value of 0 to 5, “c” has a value of 0 to 5 “d” has a value of 0 to 1, where “b” and “c”, “b” and “d” or “c” and “d” cannot both be equal to zero simultaneously, where M1 is rare earth element including gadolinium, yttrium, lutetium, or a combination thereof, M2 is aluminum or boron, M3 is gallium and M4 is a codopant; wherein two compositions having identical structural formulas are not adjacent to each other and wherein the single block is devoid of optical interfaces between different compositions.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A scintillator comprising:

a plurality of garnet compositions in a single block having the structural formula (1):
M1aM2bM3cM4dO12 (1)
where
O represents oxygen,
M1, M2, M3, and M4 represents a first, second, third and fourth metal that are different from each other,
the sum of a+b+c+d is about 8,
“a” has a value of about 2 to about 3.5,
“b” has a value of 2 to about 5,
“c” has a value of 1 to about 5
“d” has a value of 0.001 to about 1,
where “b” and “c”, “b” and “d” or “c” and “d” cannot both be equal to zero simultaneously,
M1 is a rare earth element comprising gadolinium, yttrium, lutetium, scandium, or any combination of thereof,
M2 is aluminum or boron,
M3 is gallium, and
M4 is a dopant and comprises one of thallium, copper, silver, lead, bismuth, indium, tin, antimony, tantalum, tungsten, strontium, barium, boron, magnesium, calcium, cerium, yttrium, scandium, lanthanum, lutetium, praseodymium, terbium, ytterbium, samarium, europium, holmium, dysprosium, erbium, thulium or neodymium;
wherein two compositions having identical structural formulas are not adjacent to each other and
wherein the single block is devoid of optical interfaces between different compositions.

14 more elements

A method comprising:

disposing a plurality of scintillator compositions adjacent to each other;
where the plurality of scintillator compositions each have the structural formula (1):
M1aM2bM3cM4dO12 (1)
where
O represents oxygen,
M1, M2, M3, and M4 represents a first, second, third and fourth metal that are different from each other,
the sum of a+b+c+d is about 8,
“a” has a value of about 2 to about 3.5,
“b” has a value of 2 to about 5,
“c” has a value of 1 to about 5,
“d” has a value of 0.001 to about 1,
where “b” and “c”, “b” and “d” or “c” and “d” cannot both be equal to zero simultaneously,
M1 is a rare earth element comprising gadolinium, yttrium, lutetium, scandium, or a combination of thereof,
M2 is aluminum or boron,
M3 is gallium,
M4 is a dopant and comprises one of thallium, copper, silver, lead, bismuth, indium, tin, antimony, tantalum, tungsten, strontium, barium, boron, magnesium, calcium, cerium, yttrium, scandium, lanthanum, lutetium, praseodymium, terbium, ytterbium, samarium, europium, holmium, dysprosium, erbium, thulium or neodymium;
wherein two scintillator compositions having identical structural formulas are not adjacent to each other;
compressing the scintillator compositions into one another;
and
annealing the scintillator compositions to form a single block that is devoid of optical interfaces between different scintillator compositions.

17 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.