Semiconductor detector systems

The growing interest in the possible applications of semiconductor radiation detectors in nuclear medicine stems mostly from two features of these devices: high radiation energy resolution and small physical dimensions. Many of these applications utilize semiconductors in place of scintillation detectors in scintiscanners or gamma cameras; others allow techniques heretofore impractical or impossible, such as the tracing of high-atomic-number indicators by stimulating and detecting their characteristic X-rays or by the selective absorption of X-rays traversing the structures opacified by such indicators. Small semiconductor detectors are well suited for use as probes in the immediate vicinity of anatomical structures. In in-vitro studies, semiconductor detectors are unexcelled in a number of elemental analysis methods, as well as for the assay of radiochemical purity of radiopharmaceuticals.