Advance in Lutetium Yttrium Silicate Scintillation Crystal for All-Digital PET

Lutetium Yttrium Silicate (LYSO) has become the most prominent scintillation crystal material in Positron Emission Tomography (PET) because of its outstanding comprehensive performance. In recent years, the emerging All-Digital PET technology based on the Multi-Voltage Threshold (MVT) method has digitized the origin of scintillation pulses, thereby improving key metrics such as spatial resolution and system sensitivity; this advancement has also given rise to new applications like proton therapy monitoring and positron lifetime spectroscopy. Unlike traditional time interval sampling methods, MVT represents a longitudinal sampling technique based on voltage-time, offering inherent advantages in rapidly varying pulse signal sampling domains. Consequently, tailoring the scintillation luminescence properties of LYSO crystals to adapt to the MVT sampling method becomes a new development direction for LYSO scintillation crystals under the demand of digital PET applications. This paper reviews the scintillation principles, performance modulation, and growth techniques of LYSO crystals. It outlines strategies for adjusting key properties of LYSO crystals, such as light output, decay time, and uniformity to align with the sampling characteristics of All-Digital PET. Furthermore, the paper presents the research progress of fast-decaying and highly uniform digitally modified LYSO crystals developed by the research team to meet the demands of All-Digital PET. Finally, based on the current research status of LYSO and the new demand for digital PET, the future development direction of LYSO scintillation crystals is discussed.