Digital silicon photomultiplier readout of a new fast and bright scintillation crystal (Ce:GFAG)

A new Gadolinium Fine Aluminum Gallate (Ce:GFAG) scintillation crystal with both high energy resolution and fast timing properties has successfully been grown. Compared to Gd3Al2Ga3O12 (Ce:GAGG), this new inorganic scintillation crystal has a high luminosity similar to and a faster decay time. In this paper, we report on the timing and energy performance results of the new GFAG scintillation crystal read out with digital silicon photomultipliers (dSiPM) for positron emission tomography (PET) application. The best coincidence resolving time (FWHM) of polished 3×3×5 mm3 crystals was 223±6 ps for GFAG crystals compared to 396±28 ps for GAGG crystals and 131±3 ps for LYSO crystals respectively. An energy resolution (511 keV peak of Na-22) of 10.9±0.2% was attained with GFAG coupled to dSiPM after correcting for saturation effect, compared to 9.5±0.3% for Ce:GAGG crystals and 11.9±0.4% for LYSO crystals respectively. It is expected that this new scintillator may be competitive in terms of overall properties such as energy resolution, timing resolution and growing (raw material) cost, compared to existing scintillators for positron emission tomography (PET).