A new kind of ‘camera’ is poking at the invisible world of the human body – and it’s made from the same weird crystals that once shook up solar energy. Researchers at Northwestern University and Soochow University have built the first perovskite-based gamma-ray detector that actually works for nuclear medicine imaging, like SPECT scans. This hack is unusual because it takes a once-experimental lab material and shows it can replace multimillion-dollar detectors in real-world hospitals.
Current medical scanners rely on CZT or NaI detectors. CZT is pricey and cracks like ice on a frozen lake. NaI is cheaper, but fuzzy – like photographing a cat through steamed-up glass. Perovskites, however, are easier to grow, cheaper to process, and now proven to detect single photons with record-breaking precision. The team pixelated their crystal like a smartphone camera sensor and pulled crisp 3D images out of faint radiation traces. The payoff: sharper scans, lower radiation doses, and tech that could spread beyond rich clinics.
Perovskite was once typecast as a ‘solar cell wonder,’ but now it’s mutating into a disruptive medical eye. A hack in the truest sense: re-purposing physics for life-saving clarity.
Inspiration for the Component Abuse Challenge announced a short while ago?
It’s a CsPbBr3 perovskite, which from what I can tell seems to be one that’s also promising for solar cell and quantum dot applications. (I mention because I had to dig all the way to the journal article to find that out. The details are well outside my area of expertise, but at least it’s open access!)
I’m still annoyead at whichever geologists/chemists decided that everything with a similar crystal structure to the Perovskite (CaTiO3) could also just be called Perovskite, but it’s kind of an honored tradition in the fields, I guess (cough cough oxidation reactions cough cough)
Oh, come on, no explanation whatsoever? Not everyone has PhD in nuclear physics. I guess I’m spoiled by the “old generation” of HaD authors who’d at least put the full name of the compound in the brackets.