Capillary manganese halide needle-like array scintillator with reflective cladding and method

A method for fabricating a structured scintillator comprising:

• depositing a reflective cladding on inner walls of a plurality of pores defined by a capillary array template to form a plurality of isolated waveguide channels;
• heating a metal halide scintillation material to a melt state;
• introducing the metal halide scintillation material in the melt state into the plurality of isolated waveguide channels;
• and
• cooling the metal halide scintillation material to form a pixelated needle-like array within the capillary array template.

A scintillator system, comprising:

• a structured scintillator configured to transform high-energy ionizing energy into light;
• and
• a photodetector configured to receive the light and generate an electrical signal indicative of the amount of ligh,
• wherein the structured scintillator comprises:
• a capillary array template defining a plurality of pores, each pore of the plurality of pores comprising an inner wall,
• a reflective cladding disposed on the inner wall of each pore of the plurality of pores to define a plurality of isolated waveguide channels, and
• a metal halide scintillation material disposed within the plurality of isolated waveguide channels,
• wherein the reflective cladding is configured to confine photons generated by the metal halide scintillation material within the plurality of isolated waveguide channels to facilitate oriented light propagation toward an imaging plane.