The AX-PET demonstrator—Design, construction and characterization

Abstract Axial PET is a novel geometrical concept for Positron Emission Tomography (PET), based on layers of long scintillating crystals axially aligned with the bore axis. The axial coordinate is obtained from arrays of wavelength shifting (WLS) plastic strips placed orthogonally to the crystals. This article describes the design, construction and performance evaluation of a demonstrator set-up which consists of two identical detector modules, used in coincidence. Each module comprises 48 LYSO crystals of 100 mm length and 156 WLS strips. Crystals and strips are readout by Geiger-mode Avalanche Photo Diodes (G-APDs). The signals from the two modules are processed by fully analog front-end …

AX-PET: Concept, proof of principle and first results with phantoms

AX-PET is a novel PET concept based on long crystals axially arranged and orthogonal Wavelength shifter (WLS) strips, both individually readout by Geiger-mode Avalanche Photo Diodes (G-APD). Its design was conceived in order to reduce the parallax error and simultaneously improve spatial resolution and sensitivity. The assessment of the AX-PET concept and potential was carried out through a set of measurements comprising individual module characterizations and scans in coincidence mode of point-like and extended sources. The estimated energy and spatial resolutions from point-like measurements are R FWHM =11.6% (at 511 keV) and 1.7–1.9 mm (FWHM) respectively as measured with point-like sour…

Advances in Technology for High-Energy Subnuclear Physics. Contribution of the LAA Project.