Study of time profiles of heavy scintillating crystals

In the field of particle therapy Positron Emission Tomography has proven to be the most reliable three dimensional imaging technique for beam monitoring. The standard solution for future PET scanners is to make use of heavy scintillating crystals coupled to Silicon PhotoMultipliers. This thesis is devoted to the full characterization of the parameters that influence time resolution in a scintillator/photodetector setup, with particular attention focused on the impact of time profiles of heavy scintillators on the performance. Moreover a time resolved study of rise time is proposed.