7. Conclusion

As described above, the universal scintillator does not exist. Each application or field of use requires a compromise among numerous quality criteria. The emergence of specific applications, as well as significant improvement in photodetectors, sometimes leads us to focus on new functionalities. It drives the search for levels of performance not seen with currently known scintillating materials, despite the extraordinary number of materials already investigated :

• Fast timing : a fast scintillation response makes it possible to assign a “date” to an event. If the interaction date is precisely defined (<1ns), time of flight technology can be used to obtain information on the travel distance of the γ photon. As an illustration, in the case of Positron Emission Tomography, it significantly improves the signal...