Time resolution of scintillation-based detectors is becoming continuously more important, both for medical applications, especially in positron emission tomography (PET), and in high energy physics. This article is an initial study on exploiting the fast cross-luminescence emission in the inorganic BaF2 scintillator with deep ultraviolet-sensitive silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) from Hamamatsu for precise timing in PET and HEP. Using small BaF2 pixels optimized for timing read out by these photodetectors with a photon detection efficiency (PDE) of only about 15% in the desired 200 nm emission region, a coincidence time resolution (CTR) of 94 ± 5 ps full width at half maximum (FWHM) is achieved when coupling with air. This figure improves to 78 ± 4 ps FWHM when coupling the BaF2 crystal with UV transparent optical grease, Viscasil, to the photodetector. This CTR performance obtained with BaF2 is better than that measured with LYSO:Ce, a commonly used state-of-the-art inorganic scintillator in PET, when coupled to another Hamamatsu photodetector (S13360), having a PDE of 60% at 420 nm, with Meltmount. In view of the prospects in advancing technologies for ultraviolet sensitive SiPMs, with high PDE and single photon time resolution, and further advancements in producing high quality BaF2, one could imagine the development of sub-30 ps FWHM time-of-flight-PET systems.

对于医学应用，尤其是在正电子发射断层扫描（PET）和高能物理中，基于闪烁的探测器的时间分辨率变得越来越重要。本文是利用无机材料中快速交叉发光的初步研究。巴F2滨松公司生产的具有深紫外线敏感型硅光电倍增管（SiPM）的闪烁体，可在PET和HEP中精确计时。使用小巴F2 通过这些光电探测器进行定时读取而优化的像素，在所需的200 nm发射区域中的光子检测效率（PDE）仅约为15％，同时时间分辨率（CTR）为94 ±与空气耦合时，可实现5 ps的半峰全宽（FWHM）。这个数字提高到78± 耦合时为4 ps FWHM 巴F2带有紫外线透明光学油脂Viscasil的晶体注入光电探测器。通过以下方式获得的点击率效果巴F2与LYSO：Ce（一种常用的最先进的PET无机闪烁体）结合使用另一个Melatmount的Hamamatsu光电探测器（S13360）在420 nm下具有60％的PDE时，它的测量结果要好于LYSO：Ce。鉴于具有高PDE和单光子时间分辨率的紫外线敏感型SiPM的技术发展前景，以及高质量生产方面的进一步发展巴F2，可以想像不到30 ps的FWHM飞行时间PET系统的开发。