Scintillator module for tomograph. Its method of construction and apparatus embodying such a module

The invention concerns a scintillator module for X or gamma ray tomography machines. Such an appliance is used for diagnosis as from a very large number of unit images, the signals of which are computer processed by the scanner technique. The images are provided by single scintillators the whole of which taken together forms the module concerned. The machine can include several such modules placed side by side. In these machines, each scintillator is coupled with an optical unit, photo-multiplier, photodiode, etc., that provides the signal concerned. The optical unit accepts the light emitted by the scintillator associated to it, under the effect of the incident X or gamma radiation received from the object under diagnosis after the incident photons have been transformed inside the scintillator, and emits the signal processed by the data processor. According to the applications, the rays reaching the scintillators are emitted by an external source that has crossed the organ to be observed or are, in the case of scintiscanning, the gamma rays emitted by the organ itself, into which a radioactive tracer has been injected