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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/scintillator-materials-for-radiation-detection-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Functional MaterialsScintillator material patents for radiation detection: who holds the ground and where it opens up
- Filing has cooled since 2019. The peak year saw 39 records; by 2022 the midpoint had dropped to 24, and the trend has been flat-to-declining since.
- The top 5 assignees hold 33.9% of all 723 records. The top 10 push that to 49.5% — concentrated enough that a newcomer's freedom-to-operate work should start with the leaders, not the long tail.
- Crystal growth claims (C30B) sit under G01T and C09K. Only 19.1% of records touch crystal growth directly, versus 84.1% for detection/measurement claims — a narrower, more approachable filing target.
723
Published Records
34%
Top-5 Share of All Records
0%
3-Yr Growth (lag-adjusted)
US
Leading Jurisdiction
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this landscape covers
This landscape covers 723 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that claim scintillator materials, scintillation crystals or inorganic scintillators used for radiation detection, restricted to filings that also address light yield and energy resolution, decay time, afterglow, crystal growth and cost, or pixelated array fabrication. The scope is drawn from three IPC groups: G01T1 (radiation measurement), C09K11 (luminescent materials) and C30B29 (crystal growth of specific substances), which together anchor the technical boundary of the field rather than a single application.
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent year in the trend chart understates real activity — 2026's count of 6 should be read as an incomplete year, not a genuine collapse. Family-level counting is used throughout so that multi-jurisdiction and continuation filings from the same invention are not double-counted.
Filing activity, 2017–2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Scintillator Materials for Radiation Detection covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
The Data
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 723-record set: how filing volume has moved year over year, and how those records distribute across the IPC subclasses that define the field.
A field past its filing peak
Filings rose from 14 in 2017 to a peak of 39 in 2019, then eased back toward the midpoint of 24 in 2022 and down to 6 by 2026 (partial year). Read as flat-to-declining rather than growing — new entrants are filing into a maturing claim landscape, not an expanding one.
Detection claims dominate; crystal growth is a narrower lane
G01T (nuclear and X-radiation measurement) appears in 84.1% of the 723 records and C09K (materials for miscellaneous applications, covering phosphors and luminescent compounds) in 53.3% — the two anchor most filings. C30B (crystal growth) appears in only 19.1%, and niche classes like C04B (ceramics, 2.9%) and G01V (geophysics, 3.0%) show where claim density thins out.
Shares are the percentage of the 723 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Scintillator Materials for Radiation Detection covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
Go deeper on Scintillator Materials for Radiation Detection with Eureka
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The most-cited records in this set
Representative Filing
Method for Increasing Luminescence Uniformity and Reducing Afterglow of Ce-Doped Gadolinium-Aluminum-Gallium Garnet Structure Scintillation Crystal
CHINA ELECTRONICS TECHNOLOGY GROUP CORPORATION NO.26 RESEARCH INSTITUTE
The disclosure doped Sc ions into a Ce-doped gadolinium-aluminum-gallium garnet scintillation crystal so that Sc ions occupy octahedral sites, raising the effective segregation coefficient of active Ce ions through a radius-compensation effect and lattice-parameter adjustment. This increases luminescence uniformity, optimises energy resolution, and raises the barrier to unwanted Gd-ion occupation of the octahedral site — directly targeting afterglow reduction.Filed by China Electronics Technology Group Corporation No.26 Research Institute, 2023-09-14.
Highest-citation records, 2015–2026
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6362479B1 | Scintillation detector array for encoding the energy, position, and time coordinates of gamma ray interactions | 145 |
| 2 | US5869836A | Scintillation detector with sleeved crystal boot | 127 |
| 3 | US20050006589A1 | Nuclear imaging system using scintillation bar detectors and method for event position calculation using the … | 117 |
| 4 | US20130032713A1 | Electron detector including one or more intimately-coupled scintillator-photomultiplier combinations, and ele… | 95 |
| 5 | WO2001060944A2 | Scintillator crystals, method for making same, use thereof | 85 |
| 6 | US7067816B2 | Scintillator crystals, method for making same, user thereof | 84 |
| 7 | WO2001060945A2 | Scintillator crystals, method for making same, use thereof | 82 |
| 8 | US4870279A | High resolution X-ray detector | 80 |
| 9 | US20050104001A1 | Very fast doped LaBr3 scintillators and time-of-flight PET | 77 |
| 10 | US5521387A | Radiation detector employing solid-state scintillator material and preparation methods therefor | 77 |
Citation counts inside this corpus skew toward older filings simply because they have had more time to be cited — treat them as a signal of influence on the field, not of current commercial importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Scintillator Materials for Radiation Detection covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three signals worth weighing before committing R&D or IP budget to this space.
Concentration
33.9% of 723 records
held by top 5 assignees
The top of the field is crowded
A third of all records in scope trace to just five assignees, and half trace to ten. That is dense enough that any new filing in the core detection or materials claims should expect to run into prior art from the same handful of players repeatedly, not a diffuse field of small filers.
Top 10 = 49.5% of 723 records
Momentum
39 in 2019 → 24 by 2022
peak year vs. midpoint
Activity has cooled, not accelerated
Filing volume peaked in 2019 and has trended down through the midpoint year and beyond. Combined with a data cut-off of mid-2026, the most recent counts are undercounted by publication lag, but the multi-year direction before that lag effect kicks in is still downward.
2026 partial-year count: 6
Technology mix
84.1% vs. 19.1%
G01T share vs. C30B share
Detection claims outnumber growth claims four to one
Measurement and detection architecture (G01T) appears in the large majority of records, while crystal-growth process claims (C30B) appear in roughly a fifth. That gap suggests growth-process innovation is comparatively less claimed relative to detector-side and materials-composition claims.
C09K materials claims: 53.3% of records
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Looking for what nobody has claimed yet?
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to scintillator materials for radiation detection, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Scintillator Materials for Radiation Detection covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Players
Who holds the ground
The assignee ranking covers 100 companies returned by the data endpoint — not a top-50 or top-100 cutoff, simply the full ranked list the dataset produces. Activity concentrates sharply at the leader position before spreading into a long tail.
Leader
76 records
leading assignee
One assignee sits well ahead of the field
The leading assignee's record count is more than double the fifth-place assignee's 32, signalling a sustained, multi-year filing programme rather than a single burst of activity.
Fifth place: 32 records
Mid-field
18 records
tenth place
A steep drop-off after the top ten
By tenth place, counts have fallen to 18 — roughly a quarter of the leader's total. Below that, the ranking flattens into assignees with single-digit filings, typical of universities, national labs and smaller device makers entering on specific detector or crystal-doping claims.
Top 10 combined: 358 records (49.5%)
Collaboration
10 co-assignee pairs
identified in the dataset
Joint filings cluster around a few institutional pairs
The strongest co-assignee relationships pair research foundations with universities or medical-device manufacturers, consistent with sponsored academic research feeding directly into a corporate patent programme.
Strongest pair: 13 shared records
Recent-year filing momentum among established leaders
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Saint-Gobain Crystals & Detectors | 0 | — |
| Stichting voor de Technische Wetenschappen (Dutch Technology Foundation) | 0 | — |
| General Electric Company | 0 | — |
| Koninklijke Philips N.V. | 0 | — |
| Saint-Gobain Ceramics & Plastics, Inc. | 0 | — |
| The Regents of the University of California | 0 | — |
| University of Tennessee Research Foundation | 0 | — |
| Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc. | 0 | — |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Scintillator Materials for Radiation Detection covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
What's Next
Where to take this
The dataset points to a field with an entrenched top tier and a cooling filing rate — the practical next steps differ depending on whether you are defending existing claims or looking for room to file.
Run freedom-to-operate against the concentrated leaders
With half of all records held by ten assignees, any new detector or crystal-composition filing should be checked against those portfolios first rather than swept broadly across the full 723-record set.
Explore assignee portfolios in EurekaTest claim language against the under-claimed branches
Crystal-growth cost reduction, ceramic-route processing and geophysical-grade scintillators show comparatively low IPC density — worth a closer prior-art check before assuming the space is occupied.
Search white space in EurekaTrack whether filing decline reflects consolidation or saturation
A falling trend since 2019 could mean the core claim space is filled, or that fewer, larger players are now filing more selectively. Monitoring new applications from the leading assignees over the next few publication cycles will clarify which.
Set up monitoring in EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Scintillator Materials for Radiation Detection covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions about scintillator material patents
One assignee leads the ranked list with 76 records, well ahead of the fifth-place assignee at 32. The top 5 assignees together hold 33.9% of all 723 records in scope, and the top 10 hold 49.5%, so filing activity is concentrated among a small group of established detector and crystal manufacturers, research foundations and medical-imaging companies. Below the top ten, the ranking flattens quickly into a long tail of single- or low-digit filers, typically universities and national laboratories working on specific doping or growth methods.
Filing peaked in 2019 at 39 records and has trended down since, with the 2022 midpoint at 24 and only 6 recorded by mid-2026. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the last one to two years in any trend chart will always look lower than they eventually turn out to be, so the very last data point should not be read as a hard stop. Even allowing for that lag, the multi-year direction from 2019 onward points to a maturing rather than expanding filing environment.
Crystal growth (C30B) appears in only 19.1% of the 723 records, well below the 84.1% for detection and measurement claims (G01T) and 53.3% for materials claims (C09K). Narrower classes such as ceramics and refractories (C04B, 2.9%) and geophysical surveying applications (G01V, 3.0%) show even lower density. These lower-density areas are worth a closer prior-art search before assuming they are occupied, since low IPC representation can indicate genuine white space rather than lack of interest.
This filing, from China Electronics Technology Group Corporation No.26 Research Institute in 2023, covers a method for doping Sc ions into a Ce-doped gadolinium-aluminum-gallium garnet scintillation crystal to increase luminescence uniformity and reduce afterglow, specifically via octahedral-site occupation and lattice-parameter adjustment. It is a process and composition claim tied to a specific garnet chemistry and dopant scheme, not a blanket claim over afterglow reduction generally. Anyone working on Ce-doped garnet scintillators with similar co-doping strategies should review its claim scope closely, but alternative host crystals or dopant combinations sit outside its specific chemistry.
The United States receives the largest share of filings in this dataset at 338 records, followed by the European Patent Office at 128 and the WIPO PCT route at 65. China follows at 52 and Japan at 32, with Austria's national office at 22. This distribution reflects where major detector manufacturers and medical-imaging companies seek protection first, and where a competitor is likely to have already staked out claim territory before considering secondary jurisdictions.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Scintillator Materials for Radiation Detection covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company's registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.