Cherenkov luminescence imaging in transparent media and the imaging of thin or shallow sources

In this work, we demonstrated the possibility of high spatial resolution Cherenkov luminescence imaging (CLI) for objects in transparent media. We also demonstrated the possibility of the CLI of thin opaque objects using optical transducers. Results demonstrate that submillimeter resolution CLI is achievable for beta-emitting radionuclides, including ⁷⁶Br that emits positrons of very high energy. The imaging of beta-emitters through scintillation detectors exhibits lower resolution when compared to CLI of the same sources. The application of optical transducers for the CLI was demonstrated using plants labeled with ¹¹CO₂ and phantoms containing beta-emitters.