State-of-the-art radiation detectors for medical imaging: Demands and trends

Over the last half-century a variety of significant technical advances in several scientific fields has been pointing to an exploding growth in the field of medical imaging leading to a better interpretation of more specific anatomical, biochemical and molecular pathways. In particular, the development of novel imaging detectors and readout electronics has been critical to the advancement of medical imaging allowing the invention of breakthrough platforms for simultaneous acquisition of multi-modality images at molecular level. The present paper presents a review of the challenges, demands and constraints on radiation imaging detectors imposed by the nature of the modality and the physics of the imaging source. This is followed by a concise review and perspective on various types of state-of-the-art detector technologies that have been developed to meet these requirements. Trends, prospects and new concepts for future imaging detectors are also highlighted.