Executive Summary- Radiation Detection Materials Markets

NanoMarkets

NanoMarkets, LC | PO Box 3840 | Glen Allen, VA 23058 | TEL: 804-360-2967 | FAX: 804-360-7259

www.nanomarkets.net

Radiation Detection

Materials Markets--2011

Nano-386

Published August 2011

© NanoMarkets, LC

NanoMarkets, LC PO Box 3840 Glen Allen, VA 23058 Tel: 804-360-2967 Web: www.nanomarkets.net

NanoMarkets


www.nanomarkets.net

Entire contents copyright NanoMarkets, LC. The information contained in this report is based on the best information available to us, but accuracy and completeness cannot be guaranteed. NanoMarkets, LC and its author(s) shall not stand liable for possible errors of fact or judgment. The information in this report is for the exclusive use of representative purchasing companies and may be used only by personnel at the purchasing site per sales agreement terms. Reproduction in whole or in any part is prohibited, except with the express written permission of NanoMarkets, LC.

NanoMarkets


www.nanomarkets.net

Page | i

Table of Contents

Executive Summary ...................................................................................................... 1

E.1 Current Status of Radiation Detection Materials: Industry and Markets 1

E.1.1 Scintillation Radiation Detection Materials and Applications ........................................................... 2

E.1.2 Semiconducting Radiation Detection Materials and Applications ................................................... 6

E.2 Radiation Detection Materials Opportunity Profile ................................... 10

E.2.1 Opportunities for Low-Cost Radiation Detection Materials ............................................................ 11

E.2.2 Opportunities for High-Performance Radiation Detection Materials ............................................ 12

E.2.3 Longer-term Opportunities for Radiation Detection Materials ...................................................... 14

E.3 Key Firms to Watch ........................................................................................... 15

E.4 Summary of Eight-Year Forecasts for Radiation Detection Materials .. 16

Chapter One: Introduction ....................................................................................... 21

1.1 Background to This Report.............................................................................. 21

1.1.1 Scintillations and Semiconductors ..................................................................................................... 21

1.1.2 9/11 and After: Current Prospects and Markets for Radiation Detection Materials ............... 22

1.1.2 Imaging and Other Markets ............................................................................................................... 24

1.2 Objective and Scope of this Report............................................................... 25

1.3 Methodology of this Report ............................................................................ 25

1.4 Plan of this Report ............................................................................................ 26

Chapter Two: Current and Future Factors Shaping the Radiation Detection

Materials Market .......................................................................................................... 27

2.1 Application Trends Impacting Demand for Novel Radiation Detection

Materials ..................................................................................................................... 27

2.1.1 Medical .................................................................................................................................................. 28

2.1.2 Domestic Security ................................................................................................................................ 31

2.1.3 Military................................................................................................................................................... 36

2.1.4 Nuclear Power ...................................................................................................................................... 38

2.1.5 Geophysical Applications .................................................................................................................... 40

2.1.6 Other Applications ............................................................................................................................... 41

NanoMarkets


www.nanomarkets.net

Page | ii

2.2 Industry Structure Analysis from a Materials Perspective ...................... 42

2.2.1 Current and Future Materials Requirements for Device Makers ................................................... 45

2.2.2 Market Developments and Trends at the Crystal Growers ............................................................ 47

2.2.3 Opportunities for Suppliers of Raw Chemicals in the Radiation Detection Materials Space ..... 48

2.3 Analysis of Key R&D Trends in Radiation Detection Materials ............... 49

2.4 Key Points Made in this Chapter .................................................................... 51

Chapter Three: Radiation Detection: Standard and Emerging Materials ....... 54

3.1 The Future of Sodium Iodide in Radiation Detection ............................... 54

3.2 Market Opportunities for Newer Scintillation Radiation Detection

Materials ..................................................................................................................... 55

3.2.1 Lanthanum Bromide-Based Materials ............................................................................................... 56

3.2.2 Cesium Iodide-Based Materials ......................................................................................................... 58

3.2.3 Strontium Iodide-Based Materials ..................................................................................................... 60

3.2.4 Fluoride Salt Scintillation Materials ................................................................................................... 61

3.2.5 Oxide-Based Scintillation Materials ................................................................................................... 62

3.2.6 Silicate-Based Scintillation Materials ................................................................................................. 66

3.2.7 Yttrium-Based Scintillation Materials ................................................................................................ 67

3.2.8 Nanocrystalline Scintillation Materials............................................................................................... 69

3.2.9 Plastic and Organic Polymer-Based Scintillation Materials ............................................................ 71

3.3 Market Opportunities for Semiconductor Radiation Detector Materials

...................................................................................................................................... 73

3.3.1 Ge- and Si-Based Materials ................................................................................................................ 73

3.3.2 Cadmium Telluride, and Cadmium Zinc Telluride-Based Materials .............................................. 76

3.3.3 Gallium Arsenide-Based Materials ..................................................................................................... 78

3.3.4 Indium Phosphide-Based Materials ................................................................................................... 80

3.3.5 Aluminum Antimonide, Mercury Iodide and Other High Temperature Semiconductor Radiation

Sensitive Materials ......................................................................................................................................... 81

3.4 Other Radiation Sensitive Materials ............................................................. 83

3.4.1 Silicon Carbide ..................................................................................................................................... 83

3.4.2 Gallium Nitride ..................................................................................................................................... 84

3.4.3 Neutron Detectors ............................................................................................................................... 85

3.5 Key Points Made in this Chapter .................................................................... 86

Chapter Four: Eight-Year Forecasts for Radiation Detector Materials ........ 89

4.1 Forecasting Methodology ................................................................................ 89

NanoMarkets


www.nanomarkets.net

Page | iii

4.1.1 Data Sources ........................................................................................................................................ 90

4.1.2 Roadmap for Radiation Detector Materials Growth ........................................................................ 91

4.2 Eight-Year Forecast for Radiation Detector Materials ............................. 91

4.2.1 Forecast by Radiation Detection Application ................................................................................... 99

Acronyms and Abbreviations Used in this Report .......................................... 129

About the Author .................................................................................................... 130

List of Exhibits Exhibit E-1: Worldwide Radiation Detection Revenues ($ millions).................................................... 17

Exhibit E-2: Worldwide Radiation Detector Volume ........................................................................... 19

Exhibit E-3: Worldwide Radiation Detector Revenues by Application ($ Millions) ................................. 20

Exhibit 4-1: Worldwide Radiation Detection Revenue ($ Millions) ...................................................... 92

Exhibit 4-2: Worldwide Radiation Detector Volume ........................................................................... 92

Exhibit 4-3: Worldwide Scintillation Detector Revenue by Materials Type ( $ Millions) ......................... 94

Exhibit 4-4: Worldwide Scintillation Detector Volumes by Materials Type ........................................... 95

Exhibit 4-5: Worldwide Semiconductor Detector Revenue by Materials Type ($ Millions) ..................... 96

Exhibit 4-6: Worldwide Semiconductor Detector Volume by Materials Type (Thousands of cm2) .......... 96

Exhibit 4-7: Cost per cm3 of Scintillation Materials (Dollars per cm3) ................................................. 98

Exhibit 4-8: Cost of Various Semiconducting Detector Materials (Dollars per cm2) .............................. 98

Exhibit 4-9: Worldwide Radiation Detector Revenues by Application ($ Millions) ................................100

Exhibit 4-10: Worldwide Radiation Detector Volume by Application ..................................................101

Exhibit 4-11: NaI Revenue by Application ($ Millions) ......................................................................102

Exhibit 4-12: NaI Volume (millions of cm3) by Application ................................................................103

Exhibit 4-13: CsI Crystalline Revenue by Application ($Millions) ......................................................104

Exhibit 4-14: CsI Crystalline Volume (millions of cm3) by Application ................................................105

Exhibit 4-15: CsI Thin-film Revenue by Application ($ Millions of Dollars) .........................................106

Exhibit 4-16: CsI Thin-Film Volume (millions of cm2) by Application..................................................107

Exhibit 4-17: Lanthanum-Based (LaBr3/LaCl3) Revenue by Application ($ Millions) ............................107

Exhibit 4-18: Lanthanum-Based (LaBr3/LaCl3) Volume (millions of cm3) by Application ......................108

Exhibit 4-19: Other Crystalline Simple Salt Detectors Revenue by Application ($ Millions) .................109

Exhibit 4-20: Other Crystalline Simple Salt Detectors Volume (Millions of cm3) by Application ............109

Exhibit 4-21: Oxide-Based Detectors Revenue by Application ($ Millions) ..........................................110

NanoMarkets


www.nanomarkets.net

Page | iv

Exhibit 4-22: Oxide-Based Detectors (BGO/PbWO4/etc) Volume (Millions of cm3) by Application ........111

Exhibit 4-23: Silicate-Based (LSO/BSO/etc) Revenue by Application (Millions of Dollars) ..................112

Exhibit 4-24: Silicate Based (LSO/BSO/etc) (Millions of cm3) Volume by Application .........................112

Exhibit 4-25: Yttrium-Based Scintillation Materials Revenue by Application (Millions of Dollars) .........113

Exhibit 4-26: Yttrium-Based Scintillation Materials (Millions of cm3) Volume by Application ...............114

Exhibit 4-27: Plastic/Polymer-Based Scintillation Materials Revenue by Application ($ Millions) ..........115

Exhibit 4-28: Plastic/Polymer Based Scintillation Materials (Thousands of cm2) Volume by Application 115

Exhibit 4-29: Nanocrystalline/Nanowire/etc Revenue by Application ($ Millions) ...............................116

Exhibit 4-30: Nanocrystalline/Nanowire/etc Volume (Thousands of cm2) by Application ....................117

Exhibit4-31: HPGe and Si Revenue by Application ($Millions) ..........................................................118

Exhibit 4-32: HPGe and Si (Thousands of cm2) by Application ..........................................................118

Exhibit 4-33: CdSe/CdTe/CdZnTe Revenue by Application ($ Millions) .............................................119

Exhibit 4-34: CdSe/CdTe/CdZnTe (Thousands of cm2) by Application ...............................................120

Exhibit 4-35: Gallium Arsenide Revenue by Application ($ Millions) .................................................121

Exhibit 4-36: Gallium Arsenide (Thousands of cm2) by Application....................................................121

Exhibit 4-37: Aluminum Antimonide Revenue by Application ($ Millions) ..........................................122

Exhibit 4-38: Aluminum Antimonide (Thousands of cm2) and other High Temp Semiconductors by

Application ...........................................................................................................................123

Exhibit 4-39: Other Room Temperature Semiconducting Revenue (Millions of Dollars) .....................124

Exhibit 4-40: Other Room Temperature Semiconducting Detectors by Volume (Thousands of cm2) ....125

Exhibit 4-41: Worldwide Radiation Detector Revenue by Region (Millions of Dollars) .........................127

Exhibit 4-42: Worldwide Radiation Detector Volume by Region (Thousands of cm2) ..........................127

NanoMarkets


www.nanomarkets.net

Page | 1

Executive Summary

E.1 Current Status of Radiation Detection Materials: Industry and Markets

Radiation detection materials are a category of materials that represent a sector poised to

maintain and moderately increase the steady growth of the past five-ten years. This market,

in fact, is projected to experience steady growth for the foreseeable future based on two key

application areas: domestic security and medical imaging. While the growth trend is stable

with respect to present materials, the demands of next-generation medical imaging, the

switch from film to digital for x-ray imaging, and the increased isotope detection and overall

monitoring needs of the domestic security sector will require both expansion of the capacity

of present materials and the introduction of new materials with higher performance at a

reasonable price point.

These key markets will support the majority of growth in the radiation detection materials

area over the next five-eight years. While current materials such as NaI, BGO, LYSO, silicon

and germanium are employed in many applications, they are all less than ideal for many

current and proposed new end uses. The needs of domestic security and nuclear medicine

diagnostics for both high performance and higher sensitivity for some applications, and the

need for less sensitive low cost solutions for pervasive monitoring on the other hand, present

a fertile market for new radiation detection materials.

The major radiation detection materials in the market place are either scintillation-based or

semiconductor-based. Scintillation materials are crystals that emit a flash of light when

excited by radiation. The light is then detected with a photomultiplier tube. NaI is the

dominant scintillation material used today. Other simple salts (mostly iodides), BGO

(Bi3Ge4O12), PVT (polyvinyl toluene), and LYSO (cerium doped lutetium yttrium orthosilicate)

are also widely used. Scintillation-based radiation detectors are currently the only practical

solution from a cost perspective for large area or array detectors used for medical imaging

and stand-off security applications, but improvements in their resolution, efficiency and

sensitivity are widely desired by their user base.

Semiconductor based radiation detectors are the other major class of radiation detection

materials. Silicon and high purity germanium (HPGe) are the dominant detector materials in

this class. While semiconductor detectors have much improved resolution and are the only

solution available for many high performance applications, their cost is more than ten times

that of most scintillation materials and they require mechanical cooling or cooling in liquid

NanoMarkets


www.nanomarkets.net

Page | 2

nitrogen for functionality. While extreme cooling requirements are not an issue for laboratory

applications, mobile and field applications requiring high resolution are in desperate need of a

low cost, room temperature, high resolution solution capable of isotope detection. CdZnTe is

showing promise as a room temperature radiation detector and several devices are in the

marketplace, but CdZnTe crystal growth to achieve the large single crystals necessary for large

scale production at reasonable cost has proven an elusive goal.

Through the 1990s, work to understand the physics of new scintillation and semiconductor

materials proceeded at a relatively leisurely pace and was confined largely to the academic

world, as the development of new materials and engineering of these materials into products

was not economically justified by the level of commercial demand (with the exception of

medical imaging, where there was enough demand to justify some movement to develop new

materials).

The entire landscape for radiation detection materials changed after 9/11, however, when the

threat of stateless actors attacking the U.S. or other nations with either a nuclear device or an

improvised radiological weapon (dirty bomb) became a viable threat. In response to this new

threat, the U.S. government implemented laws and policies requiring the placement of

radiation detection equipment at all ports of entry and the availability of mobile and fixed

detection equipment for first responders at home and in countries that were targets for

international terrorism. In addition, programs such as the U.S. Megaports Initiative seek to

place radiation detection equipment at foreign ports in addition to U.S. ports of entry.

E.1.1 Scintillation Radiation Detection Materials and Applications

Sodium Iodide: Thallium activated NaI(Tl) was discovered over 50 years ago and is the

dominant scintillation material used today because of its relatively good performance at an

extremely low price point. It has excellent light yield and its luminescence spectrum is well

matched to current photomultiplier tubes. The disadvantages of NaI(Tl) are its hygroscopic

nature, sensitivity to physical and thermal shock and level of resolution, which is not enough

for reliable isotope identification. NaI is widely used in security portals of all sizes, medical

applications, dosimeters, well logging, nuclear plant monitoring, and high energy physics

research. And while many new materials will take a greater share of the overall radiation

detection materials market, NanoMarkets believes that the overall growth of the market will

be so brisk in domestic security, military applications and medical imaging that the prospects

for NaI(Tl) are quite positive for the foreseeable future.

NanoMarkets


www.nanomarkets.net

Page | 3

Lanthanum Bromide: To meet the higher resolution requirements of next generation medical

imaging devices and for isotope detection, replacement materials have been investigated.

Lanthanum Bromide (LaBr3) was the first scintillation material on the market with better

resolution than NaI. One drawback is the intrinsic radioactivity of 138La, which reduces

resolution below 100 keV and makes it less attractive for lower energy sensing applications.

Projected markets for LaBr3 include the medical imaging area as well as detectors for

improved radiation detection at a distance. The U.S. Navy is currently investigating the use of

lanthanum bromide scintillation materials as part of their naval research maritime weapons of

mass destruction detection program. Adoption of LaBr3 has been slowed, however, because

of the high cost of quality LaBr3 crystals. Additionally, Saint-Gobain holds many of the key

patents for the lanthanum halogen series (LaBr3, LaCl3, etc), and NanoMarkets is uncertain

whether this situation will accelerate or retard the price reductions necessary for enabling

widespread adoption of LaBr3.

Cesium Iodide: Cesium iodide (CsI) is a scintillation material that looks to have a bright future

for growth. It is a likely substitute for NaI in applications where the shock sensitivity and

hygroscopic nature of NaI are drawbacks. CsI is not hygroscopic, is much less shock sensitive

and has similar resolution to NaI (5 percent lower). Its higher stopping power reduces the

form factor for similar detection sensitivity, and the smaller form factor has already been

exploited for use in mobile detection systems. And behind NaI(Tl), Cesium Iodide is one of the

most commonly used materials for gamma radiation detection. Because it does not need to

be in a sealed container, it is the preferred material when both high and low energy gamma

rays are of interest.

While CsI crystals will enjoy steady growth, NanoMarkets predicts that CsI thin films for x-ray

imaging are likely to be its highest growth market in the near term as x-ray medical imaging

transitions from film to digital. X-ray detectors using thin-film CsI consist of a flat panel of

amorphous Silicon (a-Si) along with a thin film coating of CsI. The X-rays cause a scintillation

event in the CsI, and the contrast of these events are transferred to the amorphous Silicon flat

panel where they are collected and turned into a digital image. CsI flat panel x-ray detectors

have been demonstrated to be of better contrast and resolution than fifth-generation storage

phosphor systems. Early systems were not cost competitive, but prices have dropped in half

over the past five years and are NanoMarkets expects them to drop in half again over the next

five years.

Strontium Iodide: Strontium iodide (SrI2) is another new radiation detection material that has

better resolution than NaI(Tl). It is newer than lanthanum bromide and has not yet

NanoMarkets


www.nanomarkets.net

Page | 4

established a market presence, but NanoMarkets believes it has many attractive properties

that make it a material to watch going forward.

Strontium Iodide doped with Europium (SrI2(Eu)) has a demonstrated resolution of ~

2.6 percengt at 662 keV. This resolution makes it a possible candidate for isotope

detection.

Early work with the material indicates that crystal growth is relatively straight forward.

If SrI2(Eu) can be grown in volume easily, the material should have a very bright future.

However, most work to date has been done at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL),

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBL)

and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Domestic Nuclear Detection Office in

conjunction with Radiation Monitoring Devices of Watertown, Mass, so it remains to be seen

if the material can be manufactured in volume. If it can, we believe that this substance has

the potential to be a significant new entrant in the scintillation materials area.

Other Halides: Other materials such as lead fluoride are used mainly as Cherenkov detectors

and in other high energy physics applications. Barium and calcium fluoride detectors are also

commercially available. Barium fluoride is attractive for some applications because of its high

density and high time resolution. Calcium fluoride is being investigated for x-ray imaging.

Oxides: Oxides represent another class of scintillation materials that in general are not quite

as good as NaI(Tl) from the perspective of light output or resolution, but compare favorably to

NaI(Tl) in terms of thermal and mechanical shock and additionally are easy to manufacture at

an attractive price point. The engineering and manufacturing advantages of the oxide

scintillators supersede the better performance of NaI(Tl) for certain applications. Bismuth

germanium oxide (BGO), lead tungstate (PbWO4), cadmium tungstate (CdWO4), and zinc

tungstate (ZnWO4), are typical of commercially available oxide scintillators. The resolution of

these materials is in the 8-to-10 percent range for 662 keV radiation. The high density of

these materials gives them good stopping power and good photon efficiency per unit volume.

This class of crystals has found applications in energy physics, nuclear physics, space physics,

nuclear medicine and medical imaging, geological prospecting and other industries.

Plastics and Organic Polymers: Plastic and organic polymer-based materials represent the

lowest cost, lowest performance type of scintillation material. They are extremely cheap to

manufacture but have almost no ability to resolve between different types of radiation. Their

ability to differentiate between natural sources of radiation such as ceramics and radiological

NanoMarkets


www.nanomarkets.net

Page | 5

threats is also limited and results in a high false positive alarm rate when they are used in

portal applications.

All of the organic and plastic scintillation materials are based on aromatic compounds that

fluoresce when radiation interacts with the pie orbitals in the double and triple bonds of such

materials. Organic scintillators are either dissolved in a solvent or polymer matrix.

Polymerized polyvinyl toluene (PVT) is the most common solid solvent system for organic

scintillators. Most of the recent work on organic scintillators has centered on loading the

material with higher Z metal centers to improve energy resolution. While some of the work is

promising, none of the improved resolution materials are currently available in high volume in

the commercial marketplace.

Silicates: Silicate-based scintillation materials represent a class of materials that NanoMarkets

believes is set for robust growth during the period covered by this report. Lutetium silicate

Lu2SiO5(Ce) or LSO and gadolinium orthosilicate (Gd2SiO5) (GSO) are of note as they are

beginning to replace BGO in many applications. LSO is one of several rare earth orthosilicate

scintillation materials that is currently used extensively in radiation detection applications.

LSO and GSO both have good light yield, good energy resolution, good chemical and radiation

stability, short luminescence, and high density. Less attractive properties for LSO are its

strong non-linear light yield and radioactive contamination.

Yttrium silicates are also expected by NanoMarkets to grow faster than the market. While

small crystal growth techniques are well understood, however, to be economically viable,

growth techniques for larger crystals will have to be developed.

YAP (YAl03/yttrium aluminum perovskite) and YAG (Y3Al5O12/yttrium aluminum garnet) were

both developed from known laser materials by doping them with Cerium. Both YAP and YAG

have resolutions slightly better than NaI(Tl) and are mechanically rugged. Current uses for

YAP include high resolution alpha spectrometers. The newest Yttrium based scintillation

material is cerium-doped gadolinium yttrium gallium aluminum garnet, which has a chemical

formula of (Gd,Y)3(G,Al)5O12. It is generally referred to GYGAG(Ce). GYGAG(Ce) and was

developed at LLNL. It is not grown from a melt as most scintillation material are, but is first

cast, then sintered, then processed in a high temperature, high pressure argon atmosphere to

remove residual porosity. While not widely used for scintillation materials, this isostatic

technique has been employed commercially in the manufacture of YAG laser elements and

transparent armor (aluminum oxynitride). Though it is not commercially available yet, the

performance of GYGAG(Ce) in the lab approaches that of LaBr3, so if it can be commercialized

NanoMarkets


www.nanomarkets.net

Page | 6

at a lower price point than LaBr3, NanoMarkets believes it will be a material to track closely as

it comes to market.

Nanocrystals: Further out on the horizon, nanocrystalline materials may begin to have an

impact on the market late in the period covered by this report. As particle sizes shrink below

100 nm, quantum effects can cause dramatic shifts in optical properties compared to the bulk.

Cadmium sulfide (CdS) is the most studied of these materials. It is likely that similar

techniques could be used to manipulate the band structure of scintillation materials to

improve their properties. Some work on the synthesis of nanocrystalline zinc oxide (ZnO),

LSO, and ZnWO4 is ongoing at various universities, but no details on their scintillation

properties have been reported to date.

E.1.2 Semiconducting Radiation Detection Materials and Applications

The highest performance radiation detection material currently available is high purity

germanium (HPGe), and it will likely remain so for the foreseeable future. Currently, it is the

only radiation detection source that can reliably identify radioisotopes from their passive

gamma emissions. The resolution of current high-performance HPGe detectors is 20 to 30

times that of NaI(Tl) (resolution down to 0.1 percent). The key application from a domestic

security perspective for HPGe is as an energy sensitive detector for radioisotope identification.

The well-known drawbacks of HPGe are its cryogenic requirements and the highly accurate

supporting electronics necessary to take advantage of its high sensitivity. HPGe also exhibits

low radiation resistance compared to scintillation detectors and can be damaged when

exposed to very high energy ionizing radiation. The electronics issues have largely been solved

as high-performance, low cost digital signal processers have become available. The low

temperature requirement is still an issue, but has been improved as small low power (around

15 watts) electromechanical cryogenic coolers have come on the market. While expensive,

HPGe has been demonstrated as effective for cargo screening with isotope identification

capability superior to traditional portal detectors. Our opinion is that HPGe will have

competition from high temperature semiconductor materials for mobile and field

applications, but no new materials will challenge it for the highest resolution applications.

Cadmium compounds: While HPGe will retain its dominance for ultra high-resolution

applications, NanoMarkets believes that new materials with resolutions high enough for

isotope detection that functions at room temperature will be the significant growth area for

semiconductor radiation detectors. Two of the most studied compounds that are poised for

growth are cadmium telluride (CdTe) and cadmium zinc telluride (CdxZn1-xTe, CZT). If current

NanoMarkets


www.nanomarkets.net

Page | 7

crystal growth issues and the resultant high costs can be addressed, these materials should

experience robust growth throughout the reporting period.

CdTe has been investigated as a room temperature gamma ray detector since the mid-1960s.

It is typically grown using vertical zone melt methods or Bridgeman methods, but techniques

to grow large single crystals needed for large volume low cost production have been

extremely difficult to achieve.

CdTe detectors are commercially available, however, and are used in some medical

instrumentation, miniaturized nuclear fuel monitoring probes, capillary electrophoresis

detectors, portable dosimeters and some x-ray and gamma ray imaging applications.

CdxZn1-xTe (CZT) was discovered in 1992 as part of work to improve the quality of CdTe. The

addition of Zn to the melt of Cd and Te during growth helps improve the dislocation density,

which results in higher quality single crystal substrates. Like CdTe, crystal growth costs and

engineering for cadmium zinc telluride are the chief limiting factors to widespread use.

While work to generate large single crystals of CdxZn1-xTe in high yield at low cost has been

slow and frustrating, recent efforts have achieved promising results. Traveling heater growth

processes have been able to produce acceptable-sized single crystals in large volumes for

medical imaging and domestic security applications. CZT-based solutions for isotope

identification for hand-held dirty bomb detection, stand-off detection and high-speed

baggage scanning equipment are all now commercially available. They have been able to

measure the ratio of 235U to 238U in samples to determine enrichment of uranium to within

10 percent at room temperature. NanoMarkets believes that CZT also has significant potential

in medical imaging. Because of its improved sensitivity, it offers a means to reduce the dose

of radioactive imaging agent used for patients, shorter imaging times and higher image

resolution.

Gallium Arsenide: Gallium arsenide (GaAs) also functions at room temperature. Its key

advantage is that it has the highest electron mobility at room temperature of all of the

common semiconductor radiation detection materials. GaAs is also widely used in the

semiconductor industry and thus single crystal substrates are readily available.

The initial work on GaAs for radiation detection applications was done in the early 1960s and

this substance was the first semiconductor to demonstrate high-resolution gamma ray

detection at room temperature. Improvement over the initial detectors has been relatively

slow, however, as germanium became the focus of semiconductor radiation detector work.

NanoMarkets


www.nanomarkets.net

Page | 8

While the substrate is widely available, thick epitaxial films are required for acceptable

efficiency and improvements in high deposition rate epitaxial deposition techniques will have

to be implemented to enable low cost, high-performance detectors. The preferred route for

commercial detectors at this point is bulk grown semi-insulating (SI) GaAs as a detector

instead of liquid phase epitaxial films. While most likely limited in volume compared to other

applications, markets for GaAs have been reported such as adoption as an x-ray imaging pixel

array, as pixel arrays for thermal neutron imaging, and in high speed radiation pulse detectors.

NanoMarkets believes that the cost of current GaAs detectors and the associated processing

requirements will probably limit their use to some low energy gamma spectrometry

applications, high speed radiation pulse detectors, and some x-ray spectrometry applications.

Indium Phosphide: Indium phosphide (InP) is a III-V compound semiconductor with a

zincblende structure. It can be grown as single crystals by standard techniques that can be cut

into large area wafers similar to what is done with silicon for CMOS applications. The band

gap of 1.35 eV (compared to 1.1 eV for silicon and 0.67 for germanium) indicates that it

should be a much lower noise detector than Si or Ge. Early work on InP centered on Fe doped

InP, which demonstrated a low charge-collection for highly doped Fe. Low doped Fe had the

drawback of low resistivity. Work is ongoing to improve InP purity and improve Fe doping

uniformity and profiles for potential applications in room temperature alpha detectors.

Other potential room temperature semiconductor materials: Other materials on the horizon

that may have applications as room temperature semiconducting radiation detection

materials include mercury iodide, thallium bromide, and aluminum antimonide.

Mercury iodide( HgI2) is a semiconducting material that has been investigated since the early

1970s as a room temperature gamma ray detector. It is limited to temperatures below 130°C

due to irreversible phase changes. Its resolution, ease of synthesis and ability to work at room

temperature has led to commercial applications in medical instrumentation, x-ray astronomy

applications, and x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy. While it has a commercial presence,

NanoMarkets does not expect mercury iodide to grow in excess of the market.

Cadmium selenide (CdSe) is another possible room temperature gamma ray and x-ray

detector, but current crystal growth techniques result in high defect levels and substantial

hole trapping, which limits it to low energy gamma spectroscopy at the present. There is

some work on CdxZn 1-xSe alloys that can be made with an increased band gap and decreased

leakage currents. No commercial devices are currently available.

NanoMarkets


www.nanomarkets.net

Page | 9

Gallium selenide (GaSe) was first studied as a possible room temperature radiation detector in

the 1970’s, but crystal growth techniques have not been found that can produce defect-free

crystals suitable for commercial applications. Additionally, its resolution may not be high

enough for isotope detection at room temperature.

Thallium bromide (TlBr) has also been investigated as a room temperature gamma ray

detector, but work in the 1980s showed surprisingly low resolution. The material was revisited

in the late 1990s and resolutions less than 5 percent were achieved at room temperature.

While this level is acceptable, it must be further improved to be effective in an isotope

detection role.

Aluminum antimonide (AlSb) is a new substance that may have significant potential as a room

temperature radiation detection material. It was initially investigated based on theoretical

studies of potential radiation detection materials and most of the work has been conducted at

LLNL. While the synthetic techniques for production of contaminate-free crystals are still

being perfected initial studies have demonstrated resolution for the 133 keV peak of 210P

around 2.5 percent. Current devices, however, suffer from incomplete charge collection due

to crystal imperfections and contaminants in the crystal. Work is ongoing to improve the

charge collection and resolution issues before prototypes will be available.

In addition, as bulk crystal synthesis may be problematic, alternative synthetic routes are

being investigated. Synthesis of AlSb nanowires by electrodeposition may provide a route

around many of the issues that have made growth of crystals by traditional means

challenging. Initial work in the lab has demonstrated that electrodeposition in a porous

template such as Al2O3 or TiO2 can result in a continuous material in the host material pores

and a means to a potential 3D sensor. Work on such nanowires is in its infancy, but if some of

the work on nanowires in other fields can be leveraged, it may be possible to build regular

arrays of highly pure AlSb capable of room temperature radiation detection.

Carbides and nitrides are also classes of semiconducting materials with potential as room

temperature radiation detectors. Silicon carbide is a well known and commercially available

material that has been used as a radiation dose meter in harsh environmental applications. It

has been demonstrated that off-the-shelf Silicon carbide ultraviolet photodiodes can be used

to measure gamma dose rates over a range of six orders of magnitude and at high

temperatures (up to 200°C). One weakness of Si and Ge are their susceptibility to damage at

high radiation levels. SiC is a good potential substitute for high radiation applications for

several reasons:

NanoMarkets


www.nanomarkets.net

Page | 10

SiC has a large band gap and high atomic displacement threshold, which improves

radiation hardness,

SiC has high electron and hole mobility, allowing fast signal collection, and

SiC has a high resistivity so no dopants are needed.

Gallium nitride (GaN) is another wide band gap semiconductor that has been investigated as a

radiation detector. It is currently widely used for LED’s and laser diodes. Because of this

experience with the material and its high radiation resistance and chemical stability GaN is

being investigated as a radiation detection material. Like SiC, gallium nitride could potentially

replace Si and Ge in applications where its improved radiation hardness is an advantage. In

fact, GaN looks very promising in improved tracking detectors for high energy physics where Si

and Ge suffer damage issues. In addition, GaN can be further radiation hardened (over an

order of magnitude) by electrochemically roughening the surface of the detector.

E.2 Radiation Detection Materials Opportunity Profile

Opportunities abound for new radiation detection materials with improved properties

compared to currently available scintillation and semiconductor products. No current

material meets all of the needs of current applications. Resolution, efficiency, sensitivity and

cost are areas of need for almost all applications. Semiconductor detectors require

improvement in room temperature service, higher availability and robustness and overall

sensitivity and performance. For scintillation detectors higher light output is a key need, as

are better linearity, energy resolution and decay times. Reduced cost and simplified

fabrication techniques are areas for improvement for nanocomposites and ceramics.

Applications for radiation detection materials can generally be broken down into low cost

solutions and high-performance solutions. Domestic security is a major user of both types.

For initial screening, a variety of plastic and NaI detectors are used. For further investigation,

semiconductor-based solutions with higher resolution are typically utilized.

In the medical imaging market, the lower cost materials dominate the landscape. The major

growth markets in this area include thin-film scintillators for x-ray detectors as well as higher

performance large scintillation crystals for radiological imaging applications. NanoMarkets

expects the overall market for radiological imaging needs to increase more than 50 percent in

the next six years.

NanoMarkets


www.nanomarkets.net

Page | 11

E.2.1 Opportunities for Low-Cost Radiation Detection Materials

Opportunities for low cost radiation detection materials center on displacing NaI(Tl) as the

material of choice for most domestic security applications and on development of high-

performance materials as alternatives for medical imaging equipment.

Domestic security opportunities: In the domestic security area, there are several

opportunities for new materials to make inroads as a replacement for NaI(Tl). All of these

opportunities revolve around alternatives that have a similar light emission to NaI and

equivalent performance in the radiation detection role, but with enough improvement in

resolution that they can function in an isotope identification role as well.

Note that the requirement is not that the material have the resolution of HPGe, but that the

material has enough improvement in resolution compared to NaI(Tl) to perform the isotopic

identification role in portal screening applications. If scintillators with such improvements in

resolution can be brought to market at low cost, they would eliminate the need for two-step

screening of cargo at ports as is done today. With an initial screen using an NaI detector

followed if necessary by screening with a high resolution HPGe detector for isotopic

determination to determine if the initial NaI-based alarm is a true security threat.

Low-cost detectors with improved resolution would eliminate this laborious second step in

cargo screening. NanoMarkets believes that, while not on the market yet, strontium iodide

has potential to function in this role. There seem to be no barriers from a crystal growth

perspective, and the high resolution of this material makes it a good candidate to provide a

low cost scintillation material with improved resolution for the isotope identification role in

cargo screening. YAP and YAG are all also candidates if their large crystal growth issues can be

overcome at low cost. GYGAG(Ce) has interesting properties as well, but is too early in its life

cycle to determine if it can be brought to market at low cost for domestic security

applications.

Thin-film-based imaging opportunities: The next class of lower cost scintillation detectors

expected to experience outsized growth is CsI thin-films for medical imaging applications. The

transition from film and phosphor plates is well underway, and CsI thin-film imaging plates

have grown dramatically in the past five years. If they can continue to come down the cost

curve, there is no reason why they should not become a dominant technology for x-ray

imaging over the next five years.

Crystal-based imaging opportunities: The final area of opportunity for lower cost scintillation

crystals is for radiological imaging. In this case, the current cost of these materials (such as

NanoMarkets


www.nanomarkets.net

Page | 12

BGO) is greater than the cost of NaI(Tl), so there is somewhat more latitude for moderately

more expensive materials to come to market if the performance improvement justifies the

cost over today’s benchmark materials. LaBr3 and silicates such as LSO and GSO should all be

well represented going forward. The yttrium silicates may also have opportunities for growth

in the medical imaging area if crystal growth techniques can be perfected to allow volume

production of large crystals.

E.2.2 Opportunities for High-Performance Radiation Detection Materials

Semiconductor radiation detectors offer the highest resolution of known materials and are

thus used in the most demanding energy resolution applications. Several attractive

opportunities for growth exist in the high-performance radiation detection materials area,

however.

Opportunities for HPGe: The highest resolution applications will continue to be dominated by

HPGe and benefit from incremental improvements in HPGe-based detectors.

In fact, these improvements will have less to do with the detection material and more with

cost and form factor reduction opportunities in the rest of the integrated system. As high

performance digital signal processors become more powerful and at the same time use less

energy, there will be some size reduction in the electronics and improved battery life for the

system due to less power use. Improvements in the electromechanical cooling alternatives to

liquid nitrogen for detectors will also be important.

Electromechanical cooling to eliminate the liquid nitrogen requirement for HPGe detectors

has undergone many improvements over the years and is at the point where the new units on

the market are much less bulky and do not degrade detector performance compared to liquid

nitrogen cooled units. Early units were too bulky for convenient use. Adoption of

electromechanical cooling elements originally developed for cooling of military IR sensors

improved form factor, but further improvements were necessary to reduce vibrations and

further reduce the form factor. Units with these improvements, which came on the market

around 2004, have high resolution, an improved form factor for mobile operations and low

enough power requirements that they are acceptable for field operations (~ 15 watts).

Based on the progression of improvements over time for such micro-electromechanical

coolers, further incremental improvements in power requirements and form factor will no

doubt continue. With the improvements in these units, competing high temperature detector

options will have to have hand held form factors and ultra low power consumptions with

resolution high enough to easily fulfill the isotope identification role in order to take market

NanoMarkets


www.nanomarkets.net

Page | 13

share away from these latest small mobile electromechanically cooled HPGe units. We

believe that the latest germanium-based detectors with the reduced size at a similar price

point will enjoy steady growth through the reporting period.

Several companies are pursuing new electromechanical materials for energy harvesting and

cooling, and these materials have the potential to reduce the size and energy requirements of

current thermoelectric coolers by half. With reduced size at a similar price point, germanium-

based detectors will enjoy steady growth through the reporting period.

Opportunities for CZT: If crystal growth techniques can be mastered and aggressive cost

cutting put in place as detector manufacturing volumes increase, NanoMarkets believes that

CZT will be poised for the most dramatic growth over the next eight years. While CZT does

not have the resolution of HPGe, it is more than adequate for isotope detection in domestic

security applications and high enough such that automated software can analyze raw data for

threats with a very low false positive identification rate.

The ability of CZT to detect at room temperature frees it from the requirements that HPGe

has for either liquid nitrogen or electromechanical coolers, thus allowing CZT detectors to

have a significantly smaller form factor and a much longer battery life for field operations. The

overall market for these detectors is not to be underestimated. If the cost can be brought

down, NanoMarkets believes that CZT will not just displace current HPGe units, but will

expand the usage of high-performance isotope-capable detectors into areas where NaI

detection is current employed because HPGe detectors are impractical due to the cooling and

form factor requirements.

Medical imaging is another significant opportunity for CZT if detector costs can be reduced.

The increased sensitivity and resolution of CZT compared to current materials such as BGO

offers several advantages:

Improved image resolution

Increased sensitivity, allowing lower doses and decreased imaging time. The

decreased imaging time per patient improves the productivity and profitability of each

unit and enables a smaller form factor unit.

All of these positive aspects can justify some cost offset of CZT vs. current and projected

scintillators. NanoMarkets anticipates, however, that there will have to be significant

reductions in the current cost of CZT detectors and demonstration of detector availability in

high volume before CZT will be adopted in the marketplace for medical imaging. Production

NanoMarkets


www.nanomarkets.net

Page | 14

volumes are increasing and crystal quality is improving, but it remains to be seen if high

volume production can reduce the costs enough for CZT to experience its full potential

growth.

E.2.3 Longer-term Opportunities for Radiation Detection Materials

A final radiation detection area where there is an opportunity and a desperate need but few

solutions is detection of low and high energy neutrons.

Opportunities in low energy neutron detection: Current low energy neutron detectors, or

thermal neutron detectors, are vacuum tubes filled with 3He gas. 3He detection is unwieldy at

best. Tubes are up to a meter long, require 1000V to operate, and are sensitive to vibrations.

Furthermore, current stores of 3He are being consumed three times faster than they are being

replenished. 3Heis is harvested from nuclear weapons, and with the disarmament treaties

presently in place, the available production is constantly declining with no natural source to

serve as a replacement. Projections are that current stores will be exhausted in less than 10

years.

Suitable solid-state materials are not commercially available. One attractive solution on the

horizon is a fabricated Si/boron solid-state detector. The detector consists of extremely

deeply etched silicon trenches (up to 50 um) that are filled with boron. The boron detects the

thermal neutrons, which produce particles that interact with the silicon to create a current

that in turn can be detected to quantify the thermal radiation. Another new solution is

scintillating glass fiber neutron censors with 6Li embedded in the glass fibers.

Opportunities in high energy neutron detection: The best known material for detecting high

energy or fast neutrons is Stilbene, but the only commercially available source of Stilbene

single crystals for radiation detection use is in the Ukraine. Crystal growth techniques are

difficult and expensive at this point. Research is ongoing at U.S.-based national labs, but work

is far from commercialization. Key characteristics for a Stilbene substitute include the

following:

The presence of benzene rings for efficient scintillation;

High hydrogen content for interactions with neutrons;

Only low-atomic-number (low-Z) constituents, such as hydrogen or carbon, to avoid

excessive interaction with gamma radiation; and

Delayed emission to better show pulse shape discrimination (PSD).

NanoMarkets


www.nanomarkets.net

Page | 15

The key for such crystals is to be able to separate the signature of neutrons from a strong

background of gamma radiation. The process is called pulse shape discrimination. Stilbene

has been known for years as such a material. Today, liquid organic scintillation materials are

used because of Stilbene’s limited availability, high cost, and environmental concerns. 1,3,5-

triphenlybenzene and 9,10 diphenylanthracene are two of the materials that LLNL has

identified as possible alternatives for Stilbene.

E.3 Key Firms to Watch

For NaI, there are several key firms to track, although there are many smaller manufacturers

that also supply the market. Horiba in Japan is one of the major manufacturers of large

NaI(Tl) crystals. In the U.S., Alpha Spectra of Grand Junction Colorado is a major supplier for

highly varied radiation detection applications. Saint-Gobain and Hilger are also major

suppliers of NaI worldwide.

For thin-film CsI/a-Si, Hamamatsu, Varian, Samsung and Kodak are all major suppliers of x-ray

flat panel modules and key firms to track in this sector going forward. Radiation Monitoring

Devices of Watertown, Massachusetts is also very active in thin-film CsI research for x-ray

detection.

For scintillation oxide and silicate crystals suitable for radiological medical imaging

applications such as BGO, LSO, GSO, Saint-Gobain, Lambda Photonics, Hilger crystals, Hitachi

and small companies such as Omega Piezo of State College, Pennsylvania and Rexon of

Beachwood, Ohio are firms to watch.

ORTEC, based in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, is one of the leaders in HPGe detectors. Canberra

Industries of Meriden, Conn. is also a major manufacturer of these detectors.

In the CZT space, Redlen Technologies is a firm to watch as is has recently opened a new

manufacturing facility in Victoria, British Columbia to expand their production of CdxZn1-xTe

single crystals. The new facility increases the number of crystal growth furnaces to over 300

from the current capacity of 50. Also in the CZT area, GE Healthcare purchased Orbotech of

Israel, which was GE’s source of CZT detectors for GE’s nuclear medicine division.

Ultra low cost plastic scintillation materials are widely available from many sources. Nucsafe

of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Radcom of Oakville, Ontario Canada, and SIAC of McLean VA, are

firms that bear watching in this sector.

NanoMarkets


www.nanomarkets.net

Page | 16

E.4 Summary of Eight-Year Forecasts for Radiation Detection Materials

Exhibits E-1 and E-2 show projections for revenue and volume for scintillation and

semiconductor radiation detectors over the next eight years. The eight-year forecast for

revenue is characterized by relatively steady growth in all sectors. Variables that could

accelerate growth include nuclear accidents, radiological terror or robust economic worldwide

growth. Factors that could retard growth from the estimates given include sovereign debt

issues affecting major economics, complacency in domestic security if terror threats subside,

or a lack of resurgence in the nuclear power industry.

The estimates in Exhibits E-1 and E-2 are further broken down in Exhibit E-3, where the

revenue projections are shown by sector. The key reason in our opinion for the steady growth

is the nature of the two dominant sectors, which are the domestic security and medical

markets.

Domestic security in the U.S. and Europe is established and has become so engrained in the

bureaucracy of these regions that spending in these areas has become non-discretionary and

basically cannot be cut. If a radiological terror attack occurs, the projections in Exhibit E-3 will

for domestic security underestimate growth, and if sovereign debt issues in Europe and the

U.S. overwhelm major governments, growth will be slightly less than the projections shown.

Growth of domestic security materials will be brisk in the BRIC countries and emerging regions

as these regions upgrade their air travel and port systems to protect themselves from possible

radiological threats.

The other dominant sector will be the medical sector, where similar dynamics are in play. In

the U.S. and Europe, the highly regulated nature of medical delivery will maintain the current

trend towards increased reliance on radiological imaging for diagnostic medicine, which will

drive steady growth in the scintillation crystal sector for the entire reporting period as shown

in Exhibit E-3. Because medicine is highly regulated, it may retard the transition to newer

materials if excessive regulatory issues impede change, but as the component being changed

is the detector material and not the nature of the radio nucleotide generating the radiation,

regulatory issues should be a minor impediment to improvements in scintillation materials for

medical imaging.

The other piece of the medical sector that will continue its rapid growth detection materials

for x-ray imaging as this diagnostic technique transitions from film and phosphors to thin-film

scintillation detectors based on CsI/a-Si thin films. The x-ray imaging sector is undergoing the

transition from film to digital that happened in the photography market in the past 10-15

NanoMarkets


www.nanomarkets.net

Page | 17

years. The early adopters have already moved to digital and digital x-ray imaging is now

becoming main stream. As detector prices continue to drop, the trend will accelerate, with

film becoming a legacy product within the next 10 years.

Outside of the domestic security and medical markets, growth will also be steady for other

sectors. Geophysical applications in the oil industry will be steady, even in a poor economy as

the demand for oil in emerging regions will support current projected levels of exploration.

Military growth will be steady as more advanced dosimeters are distributed to a higher

percentage of the troops and demand for isotope identification equipment and base

monitoring equipment increases. Isotope identification will transition to room temperature

semiconductor detectors for all but the most exacting applications. Base monitoring

equipment will make extensive use of NaI for detection and room temperature

semiconductors for isotope identification.

Nuclear power will see steady growth as emerging regions build nuclear plants. It is unknown

if the nuclear renaissance of next-generation plants will happen in the U.S. and Europe, but

the projections below assume a small renaissance with some new capacity, at least in the

construction stage by the end of the eight year reporting period. Finally, growth of non-

nuclear scientific applications should be steady for the entire eight year reporting period.

Governments worldwide have made a commitment to support scientific exploration and

unless economic turmoil is extreme, spending and growth of radiation detection materials for

scientific applications should continue on its current vector.

Exhibit E-1 shows projected revenues for all types of radiation. Revenue is given in millions of

dollars.

Exhibit E-1 Worldwide Radiation Detection Revenues ($ millions)

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Scintillation detector revenues

Semiconductor detector revenues

Total

© NanoMarkets 2011

NanoMarkets


www.nanomarkets.net

Page | 18

Exhibit E-2 shows the projected volume of material for scintillation detectors, thin-film

detectors and semiconductor detectors. Measurement units differ for each category of

detector. Volume for scintillators is given in millions of cubic centimeters. For thin-film

scintillators in millions of square centimeters and for semiconductor detectors in thousands of

square centimeters.

0

500

1,000

1,500

2,000

2,500

3,000

3,500

20112012201320142015201620172018

$ M

illio

ns

© NanoMarkets, LC

Worldwide Radiation Detection Revenues

Semiconductor detector revenues

Scintillation detector revenues

1,500

1,700

1,900

2,100

2,300

2,500

2,700

2,900

3,100

3,300

3,500

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

$ M

illio

ns

© NanoMarkets, LC

Total Radiation Detection Revenues

NanoMarkets


www.nanomarkets.net

Page | 19

Exhibit E-2 Worldwide Radiation Detector Volume

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 Crystalline scintillation detector volume (millions of cm3) Thin-film scintillation detectors (millions of cm2) Semiconductor detector volume (thousands of cm2)

© NanoMarkets 2011

Exhibit E-3 shows projected revenues broken out by sector and radiation type over the next

eight years.

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

© NanoMarkets, LC

Worldwide Radiation Detector Volume

Crystalline scintillation detector volume (millions/cm3)

Thin-film scintillation detectors (millions/cm2)

Semiconductor detector volume (thousands/cm2)

NanoMarkets


www.nanomarkets.net

Page | 20

Exhibit E-3 Worldwide Radiation Detector Revenues by Application ($ Millions)

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 Domestic Security:

Scintillation

Semiconducting

Thin-film

TOTAL

Military:

Scintillation

Semiconducting

Thin-film

TOTAL

Medical Imaging:

Scintillation

Semiconducting

Thin-film

TOTAL

Nuclear Power:

Scintillation

Semiconducting

Thin-film

TOTAL

Geophysical:

Scintillation

Semiconducting

Thin-film

TOTAL

Non-nuclear power scientific and other:

Geophysical:

Scintillation

Semiconducting

TOTAL

Grand Total

© NanoMarkets 2011

To obtain a full version of this report please visit our website at www.nanomarkets.net or contact us at 804-270-4370 or via email at [email protected].

http://www.nanomarkets.net/

NanoMarkets


www.nanomarkets.net

Page | 21

Chapter One: Introduction

1.1 Background to This Report

Radiation detection materials are a category of substances that represent a sector poised for

significant growth as new options become available in the near future. While current

materials such as sodium iodide (NaI), silicon, germanium and gallium arsenide (GaAs) are

currently used, they are all less than ideal for many existing and proposed new applications.

The needs of domestic security forces, the military and nuclear medicine diagnostics for both

high performance/higher sensitivity for some applications and the need for less sensitive, low

cost solutions for pervasive monitoring on the other hand present a fertile market for new

radiation detection materials.

1.1.1 Scintillations and Semiconductors

Radiation detection materials can be divided into two general categories. Scintillation

materials are crystals which emit a flash of light when excited by radiation. The scintillation

crystal is paired with a photomultiplier tube which converts the light flash into an electric

signal and records the intensity and quantity of the observed radiation. NaI is the dominate

scintillation material used today. Other simple salts (mostly iodides), BGO (Bi3Ge4O12, bismuth

germanium oxide), PVT (polyvinyl toluene), and LYSO (cerium doped lutetium yttrium

orthosilicate) are also used in some current commercial applications. While scintillation based

radiation detectors are presently the only practical solution from a cost perspective for large

area or array detectors used for medical imaging and stand-off security applications, their

resolution, efficiency, sensitivity, and cost are all in need of improvement to fully meet the

desired performance for today’s applications.

Semiconductor based radiation detectors are the other major class of radiation detection

materials. Si, Ge, and GaAs are the dominate detector materials in this class. While

semiconductor detectors have much improved resolution and are the only solutions available

for many high performance applications, their cost is more than ten times that of most

scintillation materials and many require cooling with liquid nitrogen to function. While

extreme cooling requirements are not an issue for laboratory applications, mobile high

resolution applications are in desperate need of a low-cost room temperature radiation

detection solution. CdZnTe is showing promise as a room temperature radiation detector and

several devices are under development, but techniques to achieve the large single crystals

necessary for large scale production has proven an elusive goal.

NanoMarkets


www.nanomarkets.net

Page | 22

Through the 1990s, work to understand the physics of new scintillation and semiconductor

materials proceeded at a relatively leisurely pace and was confined largely to the academic

world, as the development of new materials and engineering of these materials into products

was not economically justified by the commercial demand (with the exception of medical

imaging, where there was enough demand to justify some movement to develop new

materials).

1.1.2 9/11 and After: Current Prospects and Markets for Radiation Detection Materials

The entire landscape for radiation detection materials changed after 9/11, however, when the

threat of terrorists attacking the U.S. or other modern nations with either a nuclear device or

an improvised radiological weapon (dirty bomb) became a viable threat. In response to this

new threat, the U.S. government implemented laws and policies requiring the placement of

radiation detection equipment at all ports of entry and that mobile and fixed detection

equipment be available to first responders in the U.S. and worldwide for countries that were

targets for international terrorism. In addition, programs such as the Megaports Initiative

seek to place radiation detection equipment at foreign ports in addition to U.S. ports of entry.

The growth in radiation detection opportunities from these government-driven applications

has spurred research into all types of radiation detection materials. Because of the

government demand to bring new products to market, the availability of such newly

developed materials will likely lead to new demand from civilian applications as well. The

growth of civilian markets that results from newly available radiation detection materials

created from government sponsored work will be similar to much of the early growth of the

civilian silicon semiconductor market, where civilian demand by itself did not justify the

capital expenditure to develop processes and manufacturing equipment.

However, once this infrastructure existed (driven by military contracts to develop integrated

circuits for the Minuteman II missile program), the equipment and process knowledge was

leveraged to develop civilian applications of integrated circuits much earlier than would have

been economically justified had the government demand not existed. This same potential

exists for civilian applications of new radiation detection materials developed for domestic

security and military applications.

Opportunities abound for new radiation detection materials with improved properties

compared to the current crop of scintillation and semiconductor substances. No current

material meets all of the needs of today’s applications. Resolution, efficiency, sensitivity and

cost are areas of need for almost all current applications. Key areas of improvement from a

NanoMarkets


www.nanomarkets.net

Page | 23

materials perspective for semiconductor detectors include room temperature service, higher

availability and robustness than current materials and improved overall sensitivity and

performance. For the scintillation detectors, higher light output is a key need. Better linearity

and improved energy resolution and improved decay times are also properties that would be

highly beneficial. For the nanocomposites and ceramics, cost and simplified fabrication

techniques are key needs areas.

Domestic security applications represent the major source of demand for significant

improvement through discovery and commercialization of new radiation detection materials.

Currently, between 11 and 15 million shipping containers from over 600 foreign ports pass

through 370 U.S. ports each year. Radiation portal monitors (RPMs) at all of these sites were

one of the first goals of U.S. Homeland Security post 9/11. While Homeland Security has this

radiation detection equipment in place, the detection rate of false positive alarms due to

mischaracterization of natural radiation sources such as ceramics and granite as active threats

is unacceptably high.

The first generation of radiation portals was mostly PVT (polyvinyl toluene)-based. The false

positive rate with this material was extremely high. Much of this infrastructure has now been

replaced by NaI-based detectors. Typical RPMs contain arrays of approximately 10,000 NaI

crystals in their detectors. While the resolution of NaI is much improved, the false positive

rate is still unacceptably high and it remains difficult to resolve the types of radiation being

detected. Also, the lifetime of NaI is limited. Current estimates for NaI lifetimes in current

RPMs are approximately eight-ten years. Moving to HPGe (high purity germanium) would

allow the resolution necessary to eliminate nuisance alarms, but the high cost and

requirement of cryocooling caused the HPGe program to be discontinued for U.S. port

protection.

Upgrading the current infrastructure in the U.S. represents a significant opportunity for

radiation detection materials. Worldwide, the opportunity is even greater, with over 270

million cargo containers being moved between worldwide ports each year. The first

generation of detection portals cost approximately $1.2 billion for 1,400 portals. While the

U.S. Megaports Initiative has a goal of pre-inspection of all incoming cargo at foreign ports,

the incoming inspection rate is less than 10 percent today. Between upgrades to U.S.

infrastructure and Megaports-driven foreign demand, the consumption of advanced detection

materials will exhibit robust growth for the foreseeable future. Of the over $1 billion in R&D

spending by Homeland Security, over $100 million in fiscal 2012 has been approved for

radiation detection research.

NanoMarkets


www.nanomarkets.net

Page | 24

1.1.2 Imaging and Other Markets

Small-scale detection: Beyond the RPM markets, other categories of radiation detection

equipment with significant growth opportunities include personal radiation detectors (PRDs),

radioactive isotope identification devices (RIIDs), and non-invasive imaging (NII) systems.

Non-invasive imaging is a separate technology and will not be included in this report. PRDs

are small, hand-held or pocket devices that detect gamma rays and can give information on

radiation intensity. RIID’s are larger devices (from .5 to 25 lbs) that include a gamma ray

spectrometer that can determine isotopic identities. They often also contain neutron

detectors. PRDs represent a potential mass market if prices can be reduced to acceptable

levels, while RIID’s represent a significant market for all types of first responders and will have

significant military demand. Based on data from recent years, it is expected that

domestic/internal security applications will sustain their growth rate of between 10 and 13

percent over the next eight years. Around 50 percent of the market for PRDs and RIIDs is in

North America.

Geophysical applications: Radiation detectors for geophysical applications (mainly oil well

logging) represent another market where the current materials fall short of meeting the

desired radiation detection needs of the end user. Geophysical applications present some

unique use conditions compared to many other applications. Detectors for geophysical

applications must work in a wider range of temperatures and be less shock sensitive than

other applications. While NaI has been the standard material, its shock and moisture

sensitivity and the need for improved resolution have driven the search for other materials.

Lanthanum bromide (LaBr) and lanthanum chloride (LaCl) are now being used for many

geophysical applications. Lanthanum bromide provides double the light output and twice the

resolution of NaI at high temperatures. However, LaBr requires titanium housings and

sapphire window assemblies for peak performance. Further improvements to light output,

reductions in decay time and improved shock insensitivity will be beneficial for geophysical

applications.

Medical imaging: Medical imaging represents a significant opportunity for existing and new

radiation detection materials. The recent approval for reimbursement of PET and SPECT by

Medicare for Alzheimer’s patients is a major driving force for near term demand. Year on year

growth in this sector for the foreseeable future is in the 8-10 percent range. Of the overall

PET/SPECT market, PET represents approximately 75 percent of total revenue.

Several different materials are currently used for PET. BGO allows for a design that is

acceptable in performance, economical to build and easy to pack. Each BGO crystal is sawed

NanoMarkets


www.nanomarkets.net

Page | 25

into an array to direct light towards the photo multiplier tube. Such designs offer

approximately 5-mm spatial resolution. Siemens currently uses LSO (lutetium orthosilicate)

for their PET machines. Other manufacturers use LYSO as the radiation detector material.

For SPECT systems, NaI is the dominate radiation detection material. Key issues that new

materials could effectively address for these high performance imaging machines are

increased signal to noise ratio, increased efficiency, reduced decay time and lower cost. From

a performance perspective, improving timing resolution of current materials would allow high

resolution time of flight (TOF) techniques to be more widely adopted.

1.2 Objective and Scope of this Report

The objective of this report is to give a detailed analysis of the current and emerging trends in

radiation detection materials. This report will discuss the opportunities and innovations in

materials that will result in a great expansion in both applications and volume of radiation

detection materials used over the next eight years.

In this report, we review radiation detection materials by type (scintillation and

semiconducting) and by application (domestic security, military, medical imaging, geophysical

and scientific R&D). The report will discuss the status and expected development roadmap

for both scintillation and semiconducting detector materials for each application type with

forecasts on new materials and improvement in manufacturing techniques such as crystal

growth and processing improvements that will be available in the near future.

We provide an in-depth review of current commercialization efforts by firms that are focused

on both specific materials and the opportunities for each type of material as it is integrated

into products for different uses. While covering the leading efforts in all significant areas of

radiation detection materials development, we have not provided detailed profiles of all firms

with any radiation detection materials activities given that there are many firms that are

currently active in this area in at least some capacity.

The report also contains detailed forecasts of each class of radiation detection materials, in

terms of revenues and volume, as well as by geography. It is international in scope. The

forecasts are worldwide and there has been no geographic selectivity in the firms covered or

interviewed in the collection of information for this report.

1.3 Methodology of this Report

The primary sources for the opinions and conclusions cited in this report on the emerging

materials and markets for radiation detection materials include extensive interviews with

NanoMarkets


www.nanomarkets.net

Page | 26

various industry and academic sources carried out in the second quarter of 2011. Secondary

research for this report was also taken from information available on the World Wide Web,

commercial and government databases, trade and press articles, technical literature,

information learned at technical conferences and trade shows, SEC filings and other corporate

literature. The forecasting approach taken in this report is explained in more detail in Chapter

Four.

1.4 Plan of this Report

In Chapter Two of this report, we discuss worldwide trends that are impacting the demand for

new radiation detection materials, including the materials needs for the major application

categories including medical, domestic security, military, nuclear power and geophysical. An

analysis of the industry structure from a materials perspective and the current and future

requirements for device makers will be presented. A discussion of trends in crystal growth

techniques critical for large scale applications of some of the major radiation detection

materials, as well as opportunities for raw chemical suppliers to the radiation detection

materials makers is also included. Chapter Two concludes with an analysis of the key R&D

trends in radiation detection materials.

Chapter Three presents a survey of all of the key classes of radiation detection materials.

Simple salt scintillation materials, oxide-based scintillation materials, plastic/organic polymer-

based scintillation materials, silicate-based and yttrium-based materials will be covered. The

semiconductor-based materials Including silicon, germanium, selenides and tellurides of

cadmium and cadmium/zinc as well as gallium arsenide, indium phosphide and high

temperature semiconductor materials are also covered. Chapter Three concludes with a

discussion of new ceramic and nanocomposite materials.

In Chapter Four, we provide detailed forecasts of the markets for radiation detection

materials for each of the major classes of applications covered in this report. In this chapter,

we project the market forward in both volume and value terms by geography, with breakouts

by application and material type.

Date post:	11-May-2015
Category:	Technology
Upload:	n-tech-research
View:	644 times
Download:	3 times

Executive Summary- Radiation Detection Materials Markets

Technology