1/12/2010
Ling Jian Meng, an assistant professor in the Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering, is developing radiation sensors that help scientists to observe phenomena ranging from the migration of cells in the human body to giant supernovas in outer space.
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Ling Jian Meng, an assistant professor in the Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering, is developing radiation sensors that help scientists to observe phenomena ranging from the migration of cells in the human body to giant supernovas in outer space.
Meng’s work is focused on the development of x-ray and gamma ray sensors for nuclear imaging applications. Meng, who is also an affiliated faculty member of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, has recently received a $600,000 grant from the Department of Energy (DOE) for developing gamma ray detectors that can operate in strong magnetic fields.
Meng is also working with colleagues from Washington University at St Louis and the Harvard University to develop CdZnTe detectors for a hard x-ray telescope to be placed onboard the upcoming Energetic X-ray Imaging Survey Telescope (EXIST) satellite mission. Meng’s group will be working on the development of a highly-pixelated CdZnTe (CZT) detector for use as the HET’s focal-plane detector. This work has recently been awarded $800,000 from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the effort will officially start in early 2010.
These coming supports, along with previous grants from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and DOE, have helped Meng and his research team build a comprehensive research lab to apply the key sensor technologies to a wide array of nuclear imaging applications.