Patents by Inventor Naoko Inadama

Naoko Inadama has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 9029789
    Abstract: A light receiver for detecting incident time is installed on the side of a radiation source of a scintillator (including a Cherenkov radiation emitter), and information (energy, incident time, an incident position, etc.) on radiation made incident into the scintillator is obtained by the output of the light receiver. It is, thereby, possible to identify an incident position and others of radiation into the scintillator at high accuracy.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 9, 2008
    Date of Patent: May 12, 2015
    Assignee: National Institute of Radiological Sciences
    Inventors: Kengo Shibuya, Taiga Yamaya, Naoko Inadama, Fumihiko Nishikido, Eiji Yoshida, Hideo Murayama
  • Patent number: 8933410
    Abstract: A three-dimensional position-sensitive radiation detector is provided which has a three-dimensional array of photodetectors disposed on the surface of a scintillator block and which is capable of three-dimensionally identifying the position of light emission at which radiation has been detected within the detector. The three-dimensional position-sensitive radiation detector includes: a scintillator block including a central portion which restricts the direction of diffusion of light so as to direct the light in three axial directions and which has an optically discontinuous region, and an outer portion which is disposed on the outside of the central portion and which does not restrict the direction of diffusion of light; and photodetectors disposed on at least two outer circumferential surfaces of the scintillator block.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 29, 2010
    Date of Patent: January 13, 2015
    Assignees: National Institute of Radiological Sciences, Hamamatsu Photonics K.K.
    Inventors: Naoko Inadama, Hideo Murayama, Taiga Yamaya, Mitsuo Watanabe, Takahiro Moriya, Kenshi Fukumitsu, Tomohide Omura
  • Patent number: 8436312
    Abstract: This aims to provide a DOI type radiation detector in which scintillation crystals arranged two-dimensionally on a light receiving surface to form rectangular section groups in extending directions of the light receiving surface of a light receiving element are stacked up to make a three-dimensional arrangement and responses of the crystals that have detected radiation are made possible to identify at response positions on the light receiving surface, so that a three-dimensional radiation detection position can be obtained. In the DOI type radiation detector, scintillation crystals are right triangle poles extending upwards from the light receiving surface and the response positions on the light receiving surface are characterized. With this structure, DOI identification of a plurality of layers can be carried out by simply performing an Anger calculation of a light receiving element signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 8, 2008
    Date of Patent: May 7, 2013
    Assignee: National Institute of Radiological Sciences
    Inventors: Naoko Inadama, Hideo Murayama, Kengo Shibuya, Fumihiko Nishikido, Taiga Yamaya, Eiji Yoshida
  • Publication number: 20130056638
    Abstract: A three-dimensional position-sensitive radiation detector is provided which has a three-dimensional array of photodetectors disposed on the surface of a scintillator block and which is capable of three-dimensionally identifying the position of light emission at which radiation has been detected within the detector. The three-dimensional position-sensitive radiation detector includes: a scintillator block including a central portion which restricts the direction of diffusion of light so as to direct the light in three axial directions and which has an optically discontinuous region, and an outer portion which is disposed on the outside of the central portion and which does not restrict the direction of diffusion of light; and photodetectors disposed on at least two outer circumferential surfaces of the scintillator block.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 29, 2010
    Publication date: March 7, 2013
    Applicants: HAMAMATSU PHOTONICS K.K., NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF RADIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
    Inventors: Naoko Inadama, Hideo Murayama, Taiga Yamaya, Mitsuo Watanabe, Takahiro Moriya, Kenshi Fukumitsu, Tomohide Omura
  • Publication number: 20110121184
    Abstract: In a DOI radiation detector, scintillation crystals are arranged in three dimensions on a light receiving surface of a light receiving element, and a response of a crystal having detected a radiation ray can be identified on the light receiving surface. Thereby, a position at which the radiation ray is detected is determined in three dimensions. In this DOI radiation detector, regular triangular prism scintillation crystals are used, and response positions of the respective crystals are shifted for each set. This allows crystal identification without loss even with a structure such as a three-layer or six-layer structure hard to achieve by a quadrangular prism scintillation crystal.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 16, 2008
    Publication date: May 26, 2011
    Applicants: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF RADIOLOGICAL SCIENCES, SHIMADZU CORPORATION
    Inventors: Naoko Inadama, Hideo Murayama, Kengo Shibuya, Fumihiko Nishikido, Tomoaki Tsuda
  • Publication number: 20110101229
    Abstract: This aims to provide a DOI type radiation detector in which scintillation crystals arranged two-dimensionally on a light receiving surface to form rectangular section groups in extending directions of the light receiving surface of a light receiving element are stacked up to make a three-dimensional arrangement and responses of the crystals that have detected radiation are made possible to identify at response positions on the light receiving surface, so that a three-dimensional radiation detection position can be obtained. In the DOI type radiation detector, scintillation crystals are right triangle poles extending upwards from the light receiving surface and the response positions on the light receiving surface are characterized. With this structure, DOI identification of a plurality of layers can be carried out by simply performing an Anger calculation of a light receiving element signal.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 8, 2008
    Publication date: May 5, 2011
    Applicant: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF RADIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
    Inventors: Naoko Inadama, Hideo Murayama, Kengo Shibuya, Fumihiko Nishikido, Taiga Yamaya, Eiji Yoshida
  • Publication number: 20110024637
    Abstract: In an open-type PET scanner, detector rings arranged in a multilayered manner in an axial direction are at least partially opened and the thus opened part of the detector rings is at least partially included in a main focus region. Then, at least some of the detecting elements constituting the detector ring are disposed obliquely in the axial direction so that the main sensitivity direction thereof is turned closer to the main focus region, increasing the resolution in the main focus region. Thereby, it is possible to retain resolution in the body axis direction without using a high-resolution DOI detector and to reduce the price of the open-type PET scanner.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 1, 2008
    Publication date: February 3, 2011
    Applicant: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF RADIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
    Inventors: Taiga Yamaya, Hideo Murayama, Naoko Inadama
  • Publication number: 20110001049
    Abstract: A light receiver for detecting incident time is installed on the side of a radiation source of a scintillator (including a Cherenkov radiation emitter), and information (energy, incident time, an incident position, etc.) on radiation made incident into the scintillator is obtained by the output of the light receiver. It is, thereby, possible to identify an incident position and others of radiation into the scintillator at high accuracy.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 9, 2008
    Publication date: January 6, 2011
    Applicant: National Institute of Radiological Sciences
    Inventors: Kengo Shibuya, Taiga Yamaya, Naoko Inadama, Fumihiko Nishikido, Eiji Yoshida, Hideo Murayama
  • Patent number: 7671339
    Abstract: A positron emission tomography (PET) scanner is provided which uses information on the time-of-flight difference (TOF) between annihilation radiations for image reconstruction. The scanner has detection time correction information (memory) corresponding to information on coordinates in a radiation detection element (e.g., scintillator crystal), in the depth and lateral directions, at which an interaction has occurred between an annihilation radiation and the crystal. Reference is made to the detection time correction information, thereby providing information on time-of-flight difference with improved accuracy. As such, an improved signal to noise ratio and spatial resolution are provided for image reconstruction using time-of-flight (TOF) difference.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 25, 2006
    Date of Patent: March 2, 2010
    Assignee: National Institute of Radiological Sciences
    Inventors: Kengo Shibuya, Tomoaki Tsuda, Fumihiko Nishikido, Naoko Inadama, Eiji Yoshida, Taiga Yamaya, Hideo Murayama
  • Publication number: 20090159804
    Abstract: A positron emission tomography (PET) scanner is provided which uses information on the time-of-flight difference (TOF) between annihilation radiations for image reconstruction. The scanner has detection time correction information (memory) corresponding to information on coordinates in a radiation detection element (e.g., scintillator crystal), in the depth and lateral directions, at which an interaction has occurred between an annihilation radiation and the crystal. Reference is made to the detection time correction information, thereby providing information on time-of-flight difference with improved accuracy. As such, an improved signal to noise ratio and spatial resolution are provided for image reconstruction using time-of-flight (TOF) difference.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 25, 2006
    Publication date: June 25, 2009
    Applicant: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF RADIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
    Inventors: Kengo Shibuya, Tomoaki Tsuda, Fumihiko Nishikido, Naoko Inadama, Eiji Yoshida, Taiga Yamaya, Hideo Murayama
  • Patent number: 7091490
    Abstract: A depth of interaction detector with uniform pulse-height comprises a multi-layer scintillator obtained by coupling at least two scintillator cells on a plane and then stacking the planar coupled scintillator cells, in layers, up to at least two stages and a light-receiving element connected to the bottom face of each scintillator cell of this multi-layer scintillator, wherein the detector is provided with a means for discriminating the position of a scintillator cell, which receives radiant rays and emits light rays and a means for making, uniform, the quantity of the light emitted from each scintillator cell and received by the light-receiving element.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 15, 2003
    Date of Patent: August 15, 2006
    Assignees: Hitachi Chemical Co., Ltd., National Institute of Radiological Sciences, Hamamatsu Photonics K.K.
    Inventors: Keiji Sumiya, Hiroyuki Ishibashi, Hideo Murayama, Naoko Inadama, Takaji Yamashita, Tomohide Omura
  • Patent number: 7087905
    Abstract: The radiation three-dimensional position detector of the present invention comprises a scintillator unit (10), a light receiving element (20) and an operation section (30). The scintillator unit is disposed on the light incident plane of the light receiving element, wherein the scintillator unit is comprised of four layers of scintillator arrays, each layer being composed of scintillator cells arrayed in 8 row ?8 column matrix. The scintillator cell produces scintillation light corresponding to the radiation absorbed thereby. The optical characteristic of a partition material for separating neighboring scintillator cells, which faces at least one same side face is different between a scintillator cell Ck1,m,n included in one scintillator array layer (k1-th layer) and a scintillator cell Ck2,m,n included in the other scintillator array layer (k2-th layer).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 26, 2004
    Date of Patent: August 8, 2006
    Assignees: National Institute of Radiological Sciences, Shimadzu Corporation, Hamamatsu Photonics K.K.
    Inventors: Hideo Murayama, Naoko Inadama, Keishi Kitamura, Takaji Yamashita
  • Publication number: 20050087693
    Abstract: A depth of interaction detector with uniform pulse-height comprises a multi-layer scintillator obtained by coupling at least two scintillator cells on a plane and then stacking the planar coupled scintillator cells, in layers, up to at least two stages and a light-receiving element connected to the bottom face of each scintillator cell of this multi-layer scintillator, wherein the detector is provided with a means for discriminating the position of a scintillator cell, which receives radiant rays and emits light rays and a means for making, uniform, the quantity of the light emitted from each scintillator cell and received by the light-receiving element.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 15, 2003
    Publication date: April 28, 2005
    Inventors: Keiji Sumiya, Hiroyuki Ishibashi, Hideo Murayama, Naoko Inadama, Takaji Yamashita, Tomohide Omura
  • Publication number: 20040178347
    Abstract: The radiation three-dimensional position detector of the present invention comprises a scintillator unit (10), a light receiving element (20) and an operation section (30). The scintillator unit is disposed on the light incident plane of the light receiving element, wherein the scintillator unit is comprised of four layers of scintillator arrays, each layer being composed of scintillator cells arrayed in 8 row—8 column matrix. The scintillator cell produces scintillation light corresponding to the radiation absorbed thereby. The optical characteristic of a partition material for separating neighboring scintillator cells, which faces at least one same side face is different between a scintillator cell Ck1,m,n included in one scintillator array layer (k1-th layer) and a scintillator cell Ck2,m,n included in the other scintillator array layer (k2-th layer).
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 26, 2004
    Publication date: September 16, 2004
    Applicants: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF RADIOLOGICAL SCIENCES, SHIMADZU CORPORATION, HAMAMATSU PHOTONICS K.K.
    Inventors: Hideo Murayama, Naoko Inadama, Keishi Kitamura, Takaji Yamashita