UTSI Researchers Patent New X-Ray Imaging Technique
University of Tennessee Space Institute Professor Jackie Johnson, UTSI Adjunct Research Associate Professor R. Lee Leonard, UTSI Senior Research Associate Chad Bond, and their colleagues have secured a patent for a technology that will improve medical imaging.
Their innovation improves x-ray imaging technology by placing a standard light detector between two panes of a scintillating glass ceramic. This novel “sandwich” arrangement captures more information than the configuration currently used in x-ray imaging devices, improving image quality.
Scintillators Reveal the Unseen
Johnson, Leonard, and Bond are members of the UTSI BEAMS lab, a multidisciplinary group investigating a variety of promising next-generation materials including scintillating glasses and glass ceramics.
“Glass is an old material still finding use in modern technology,” Johnson said.
When struck with ionizing radiation, such as x-rays, scintillators spontaneously emit visible light. Crystalline scintillators are often used in x-ray imaging devices, where they are paired with photosensor arrays that translate the visible light into digital images.
This flat panel detector (FPD) technology allows medical experts to quickly and accurately observe a patient’s bone structure, monitor the spread of medicine in the body, or identify cancers.
Unfortunately, because an x-ray photon can only be recorded if it is absorbed by the scintillator, a large fraction of the x-ray beam—more than a third of the radiation, in some cases—will pass through an FPD undetected. As a result of this inefficiency, generating an acceptable image requires subjecting patients to significantly greater doses of radiation than necessary in an ideal system.
Scintillator Sandwich
Previous researchers tackling this problem have tried increasing the thickness of the FPD’s scintillating screen. While a thicker screen does capture more of the x-ray beam, it also makes the final image blurrier.
Instead, Johnson, Leonard, Bond, and their colleagues came up with the idea of a scintillator “sandwich.” In this configuration, an FPD is placed between two layers of a scintillating material. The first scintillator and the photosensor act as a typical FPD, converting the typical amount of x-ray radiation to a digital image.
With the team’s patented technology, the glass substrate that usually contains the FPD’s electronics is replaced with a scintillating glass ceramic. This second scintillating layer absorbs a portion of the radiation that passed through the FPD and converts it to visible light, increasing the proportion of the x-rays that are captured.
This more efficient system allows for improved image quality, reduced radiation dose to the patient, or some combination of both.
“As a Tullahoma native, I’m extremely proud of the important research happening at the Space Institute,” said Bond. Some aspects of the newly patented technology are extensions of the work Bond conducted in the BEAMS lab while earning his master’s and doctorate degrees.
The patent application, which was approved on April 8, 2025, was facilitated by the UT Research Foundation. Other collaborators on the patent include retired State University of New York at Stony Brook researcher, and patent lead author, Anthony Lubinsky; Stony Brook clinical physicist Adrian Howansky; and Georgia Institute of Technology program manager M. Brooke Beckert.
Contact
Izzie Gall (865-974-7203, egall4@utk.edu)