Development of an ultrahigh-resolution radiation real-time imaging system to observe trajectory of alpha particles in a scintillator

The high-resolution imaging of alpha particles is required for the development of radio-compounds for targeted alpha-particle therapy or alpha emitter detection at nuclear facilities. Therefore, we developed an ultrahigh-resolution, real-time alpha-particle imaging system for observing the trajectories of alpha particles in a scintillator. The developed alpha-particle imaging system is made from a 1-μm-diameter fiber-structure scintillator plate that is optically coupled with the first of two sequentially connected tapered optical fiber plates. The output of the second, larger tapered optical fiber plate was imaged by an electron-multiplied (EM) cooled CCD camera. With our developed imaging system, we observed images of alpha particles having a spatial resolution of ~11 μm. We could also observe the trajectories of alpha particles with Bragg peaks for the angled incident alpha particles. We conclude that this imaging system, which can observe the trajectory of alpha particles in a fiber-structure scintillator, is promising for research on targeted alpha-particle therapy or alpha emitter detection at nuclear facilities.