Levy and West, the founders of the renowned laboratories which later became Applied Scintillation Technologies and then Scintacor, were among the pioneers who explored the use of zinc sulphide phosphors for fluoroscopic X-ray imaging. Since then, many additional phosphor systems have been developed and today we find gadolinium oxysulphide (Gd2O2S or simply Gadox / GOS) phosphor is one of the most widely adopted for several reasons. The material morphology is well known and well controlled; the luminescent efficiency is relatively high (approximately 15%) and the emitted light matches well with the spectral response of silicon light detection devices such as charge-coupled detectors (CCD) and complementary metal oxide semiconductors (CMOS).

Gadox scintillator screens were originally developed and commercialized by companies which supplied photographic film and were often described as ‘fine’, ‘regular’ or ‘fast’ depending upon the film speed and spatial resolution of the film with which they were paired. These screens are still widely available up to a maximum size of 14’’x 17’’ but they do not always provide the optimal solution for digital X-ray imaging. Conversely, Scintacor phosphor screens have been specifically designed around digital X-ray imaging systems to provide differentiated performance over standard scintillator screens, in both lens-coupled systems, and direct-coupling to solid-state light detectors, such as CMOS and CCD.