Oriented Microstructured Scintillator for High‐Resolution X‐Ray Imaging

Abstract

ABSTRACT The structured scintillator is regarded as the sole strategy for achieving high‐resolution X‐ray imaging. Unfortunately, the construction of large‐sized and uniform integrated candidates with oriented microstructure remains an insurmountable challenge. Herein, we propose and demonstrate a novel large‐scale, highly uniform integrated oriented microstructured glass composite scintillator by triggering the oriented crystallization habit of the metastable glass. It is featured by columnar microcrystalline arrays with a high refractive index embedded in the glass phase with a relatively low refractive index. This enables to form an intrinsic waveguide configuration with light confinement capabilities, in which the directional propagation of photons can be realized. As a result, an excellent scintillation performance with the X‐ray excited luminescence intensity of 5.67 times that of BGO can be realized. It also demonstrates the excellent environmental resistance because of the all‐oxide system. By using this oriented microstructured glass composite scintillator, the X‐ray imaging system is built, and an impressive imaging resolution of 30 lp mm −1 is successfully achieved. The progress represents a giant step toward high‐resolution X‐ray imaging with structured scintillators.