A liquid xenon radioisotope camera.

A new type of gamma-ray camera is discussed that makes use of electron avalanches in liquid xenon and is currently under development. It is shown that such a radioisotope camera promises many advantages over any other existing gamma-ray cameras. Spatial resolution better than 1 mm and counting rates higher than one million C/sec are possible. An energy resolution of 11% FWHM has recently been achieved with a collimated Hg-203 source using a parallel-plate ionization chamber containing a Frisch grid.