Print Email Facebook Twitter Time-based position estimation in monolithic scintillator detectors Title Time-based position estimation in monolithic scintillator detectors Author Tabacchini, V. Borghi, G. Schaart, D.R. Faculty Applied Sciences Department Radiation, Science and Technology Date 2015-07-02 Abstract Gamma-ray detectors based on bright monolithic scintillation crystals coupled to pixelated photodetectors are currently being considered for several applications in the medical imaging field. In a typical monolithic detector, both the light intensity and the time of arrival of the earliest scintillation photons can be recorded by each of the photosensor pixels every time a gamma interaction occurs. Generally, the time stamps are used to determine the gamma interaction time while the light intensities are used to estimate the 3D position of the interaction point. In this work we show that the spatio-temporal distribution of the time stamps also carries information on the location of the gamma interaction point and thus the time stamps can be used as explanatory variables for position estimation. We present a model for the spatial resolution obtainable when the interaction position is estimated using exclusively the time stamp of the first photon detected on each of the photosensor pixels. The model is shown to be in agreement with experimental measurements on a 16 mm × 16 mm × 10 mm LSO : Ce,0.2%Ca crystal coupled to a digital photon counter (DPC) array where a spatial resolution of 3 mm (root mean squared error) is obtained. Finally we discuss the effects of the main parameters such as scintillator rise and decay time, light output and photosensor single photon time resolution and pixel size. Subject monolithic scintillator detectorsposition estimationdigital silicon photomultiplierspositron emission tomography (PET) To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:4168856b-8cb3-4cd2-b400-8c35f4e0cbf9 DOI https://doi.org/10.1088/0031-9155/60/14/5513 Publisher IOP Publishing ISSN 0031-9155 Source Physics in Medicine and Biology, 60, 2015 Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type journal article Rights (c)2015 The AuthorsPublished under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence Files PDF tabacchini.pdf 767.42 KB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:4168856b-8cb3-4cd2-b400-8c35f4e0cbf9/datastream/OBJ/view