Applying Novel Surface Functionalisation Strategies to Metascintillators for Improved Cancer Detection PhD

Early and accurate cancer detection is a major global healthcare challenge, with significant implications for patient outcomes and treatment strategies. Time-of-Flight Positron Emission Tomography (ToF-PET) provides critical functional and molecular insights to improve cancer staging but is currently limited by detector timing resolution and sensitivity.

Metascintillators, an emerging family of scintillator-based radiation sensors combining multiple materials with complementary functions, offer a promising route to overcome these limits and achieve unprecedented timing resolution (sub-70ps), enabling more sensitive and faster cancer imaging.

This PhD project will focus on surface functionalisation of metascintillators to optimise their scintillation performance, light yield, timing resolution, and energy efficiency. Surface treatments and engineered coatings will be explored to improve inter-material interfaces, reduce optical losses, and enhance detector robustness, critical factors to advance metascintillator prototypes towards clinical application.

The research will combine experimental surface engineering, advanced materials characterisation (SEM, XRD, spectroscopy), and performance testing alongside modelling tools to understand and tailor the physical and chemical interactions at the interfaces within metascintillators.

Cranfield University’s Centre for Materials is internationally recognised for cutting-edge research in advanced functional materials, offering state-of-the-art facilities and strong academic and industrial collaborations. The project will be supervised by Dr Gregory Bizarri, an expert in radiation–matter interaction and materials simulation (h-index 36, i10-index 69), and Dr Francesco Fanicchia, Research Area Lead: Material Systems for Demanding Environments at the Henry Royce Institute (h-index 9, i10-index 8). This studentship is supported through collaboration with leading partners in the medical imaging and materials sectors.

Successful completion of this project will provide validated surface functionalisation methods that significantly improve metascintillator performance, accelerating the development of advanced radiation detectors for ToF-PET and enhancing early cancer diagnostic capabilities. The skills and knowledge gained will be transferable to other applications requiring high-performance radiation detection and advanced material interfaces. Through this multidisciplinary project, the student will develop expertise in:

• Direct collaboration with leading medical imaging and materials science partners.
• Access to Cranfield’s advanced materials characterisation and fabrication laboratories.
• Hands-on experience in surface engineering and scintillator detector testing.
• Training in modelling and simulation of radiation–matter interactions.
• Opportunities to present research at international conferences and build a professional network across academia and industry.
• Development of expertise in cutting-edge experimental techniques, computational modelling, and interdisciplinary communication.