Advances in design of high-performance heterostructured scintillators for time-of-flight positron emission tomography

Core to advancing time-of-flight positron emission tomography (ToF-PET) toward a less invasive, more flexible procedure with a higher diagnostic power is the development of enhanced radiation detector materials. One promising avenue is the development of heterostructured scintillators where multiple materials work in synergy to exceed the performance of each individual component. Applied to ToF-PET detectors, one component contributes predominantly to the absorption of gamma rays and the other to the creation of ultra-fast photons. Whilst other authors have proposed various concepts, heterostructured scintillators are still in their infancy and scientifically guiding their development remains a challenge. Toward this aim and based on simulation and modeling developments, heterostructure properties are directly linked to ToF-PET performance. This is made possible by redefining the notions of detector photo-peak efficiency and timing response, as defined for monolithic detectors, in the context of heterostructured scintillators. Their overall potential is then discussed as a function of the materials and design used. This provides a quantitative framework to rapidly and efficiently support the advancement of heterostructured detectors for ToF-PET technology.