Copper-Based Perovskite-Inspired Scintillators for Medical Imaging

The need for efficient, cost-effective, and stable scintillators drives the investigation of new materials and their integration in application areas, such as nanotechnologies, health, and material characterization. In recent years, advanced materials, including Metal Halide Perovskite (PVK) and inspired PVK, have emerged as potential novel X/γ-ray scintillators, bridging the gap between conventional inorganic and plastic scintillators, due to their very promising theoretical light yield, energy, and time resolution values. Currently, these properties have not yet been experimentally achieved, and they are worth to be investigated improving the performance of medical imaging devices based on X/γ-ray sensors. In this work, copper-based PVK-inspired single crystals (SCs) have been grown using a cost-effective solution method. These SCs exhibit promising scintillation characteristics, including efficient light yield and good energy resolution. In addition, the materials have good environmental and structural stability under γ-ray radiation exposure. The crystal growth parameters are under optimization to improve the γ-ray responses, characterizing their optical and structural properties by X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV-visible spectroscopy, and luminescence measurements. The preliminary results show the potential of these Cu-based PVK-inspired materials as efficient and affordable alternatives to traditional (NaI and CsI) scintillators for the final application in single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT). This study represents a significant step toward the integration of novel scintillators in next-generation nuclear medicine imaging devices, specifically in single-photon and likely positron emission imaging.