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The quest for new radiation detector materials

Abstract: Radiation detectors have been an essential tool of the physical sciences for over 100 years and during that time many new detector materials have been discovered, developed, and put into widespread use. Nonetheless there are many applications where the performance of available materials falls far short of what should be possible. This talk will review the current efforts in understanding the fundamental limits of detector materials, the use of first-principles calculations and supercomputers to guide the selection of new candidates, and the use of high-throughput synthesis and measurement techniques to discover which of those candidates provides improved performance.
Speaker: Stephen Derenzo - Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Speaker Bio: STEPHEN E. DERENZO is a Senior Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Head of the Medical Imaging Technology Department in the Life Sciences Division, and Professor-in-Residence in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at UC Berkeley. He and his colleagues constructed two pioneering positron emission tomographs (PET) and developed advanced scintillation detectors for PET that provide high spatial resolution, depth-of-interaction information, and compact integrated circuit readout. For the past 20 years he has lead a search for new heavy scintillators and currently heads a project for the discovery of scintillation detector materials that uses automation to increase the rate of synthesis and characterization. He has authored or co-authored over 200 technical publications and seven patents. He has received two awards from the IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society: the Merit Award in 1992 and the Radiation Instrumentation Outstanding Achievement Award in 2001. He became an IEEE Fellow in 2000.
Poster Link: Poster
Presentation: Presentation on 3/19/2008 (PDF)