Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Scintillating materials are used in a variety of medical imaging devices. This paper presents a description of four medical imaging modalities that make extensive use of scintillators: planar x-ray imaging, x-ray computed tomography (x-ray CT), SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) and PET (positron emission tomography). The discussion concentrates on a description of the underlying physical principles by which the four modalities operate. The scintillator requirements for these systems are enumerated and the compromises that are made in order to maximize imaging performance utilizing existing scintillating materials are discussed, as is the potential for improving imaging performance by improving scintillator properties.