SPECIAL NOTICE
A -- TECHNOLOGY/BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY Radiation Detection with Phase Stable Transparent Ceramic Scintillators
- Notice Date
- 3/11/2011
- Notice Type
- Special Notice
- NAICS
- 238990
— All Other Specialty Trade Contractors
- Contracting Office
- Department of Energy, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (DOE Contractor), Industrial Partnerships & Commercialization, 7000 East Avenue, L-795, Livermore, California, 94550
- ZIP Code
- 94550
- Solicitation Number
- FBO235-11
- Archive Date
- 4/12/2011
- Point of Contact
- Connie L Pitcock, Phone: 925-422-1072
- E-Mail Address
-
pitcock1@llnl.gov
(pitcock1@llnl.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- TECHNOLOGY/BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY Radiation Detection with Phase Stable Transparent Ceramic Scintillators Opportunity : Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), operated by the Lawrence Livermore National Security (LLNS), LLC under contract with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), is offering the opportunity to license intellectual property rights covering this technology for commercialization. Background: Widespread use of single crystal inorganic scintillators is seen in medical imaging, high energy physics, and environmental radiation monitoring applications. These crystals are typically hygroscopic requiring air-tight housing for handling and their fabrication is costly. Transparent polycrystalline ceramics of rare earth garnets show promise for easing fabrication and reducing costs as well as allowing customization of fabrication components. Since garnets are oxides, they offer excellent handling and fabrication advantages, compared to the more commonly employed halide scintillators. Transparent ceramics are polycrystalline optics formed by consolidation of nanocrystalline precursors into a fully dense solid. Transparent polycrystalline ceramics not only allow production costs to be substantially reduced, but permit the fabrication of compositions that do not melt congruently and are, therefore, unobtainable via melt growth. Furthermore, activator concentration and uniformity can be considerably increased over melt-grown crystals. Description: Transparent ceramic fabrication allows the production of gadolinium-, lutetium-, and terbium-based garnets which are difficult to grow by melt techniques due to phase instabilities. Phase stabilization of the garnets is accomplished by the addition of the intersubstitutional ions, Gallium and/or Scandium. Scientists have developed many versatile and scaleable fabrication methods. One includes using Flame Spray Pyrolysis (FSP) to produce feedstock which is readily converted into phase-pure transparent ceramics. The FSP nanoparticles are formed into a green body, vacuum sintered, then hot-isostatic pressed into optically transparent parts. The transparent ceramic scintillators have been found to provide a surprisingly high light yield which results in gamma ray spectroscopy energy resolution superior to known oxide scintillators. Advantages: · Reduced cost of crystal fabrication · Phase stabilization and reduced precision requirements of stoichiometric ratios during fabrication · Customization and therefore optimization of materials · High gamma ray spectroscopy energy resolution Potential Applications: Transparent ceramics are ideally suited to gamma ray spectroscopy, but can also be used for radiography, computed tomography applications and as laser gain media for lasers including high average power lasers, and as specialized optical components such as Faraday rotators. Development Status: Scientists have fabricated and characterized a number of transparent ceramic scintillators. Refer to the published patent application and scientific publications listed below for more information. U.S. Patent Publication No. 2010/0294939 Phase Stable Rare Earth Garnets ( http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=20100294939.PGNR.&OS=DN/20100294939&RS=DN/20100294939 ) Cherepy, N.J. et al. (2010) “Transparent ceramic scintillators for gamma-ray spectroscopy and radiography” http://spie.org/x42241.xml?ArticleID=x42241 Cherepy, N. J. et al (2010) “Transparent ceramic scintillators for gamma spectroscopy and radiography,” Proc. SPIE Vol. 7805, pp. 78050I. doi:10.1117/12.862503 LLNL is seeking industry partners with a demonstrated ability to bring such inventions to the market. Moving critical technology beyond the Laboratory to the commercial world helps our licensees gain a competitive edge in the marketplace. All licensing activities are conducted under policies relating to the strict nondisclosure of company proprietary information. Please visit the IPO website at https://ipo.llnl.gov/?q=resources-industry-working_with_us for more information on working with LLNL and the industrial partnering and technology transfer process.
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/DOE/LLNL/LL/FBO235-11/listing.html)
- Record
- SN02399054-W 20110313/110311234450-938f33b0bb412290a5a1d3b6a387f24c (fbodaily.com)
- Source
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