0000000000505282

AUTHOR

W.l. Rogers

Development of silicon pad detectors and readout electronics for a Compton camera

Abstract Applications in nuclear medicine and bio-medical engineering may profit using a Compton camera for imaging distributions of radio-isotope labelled tracers in organs and tissues. These applications require detection of photons using thick position-sensitive silicon sensors with the highest possible energy and good spatial resolution. In this paper, research and development on silicon pad sensors and associated readout electronics for a Compton camera are presented. First results with low-noise, self-triggering VATAGP ASIC's are reported. The measured energy resolution was 1.1 keV FWHM at room temperature for the 241 Am photo-peak at 59.5 keV .

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A Pixelated Silicon Positron Sensitive Imaging Probe

A pixelated silicon positron sensitive imaging probe is under development to precisely localize superficially located tumors accumulating 18F-FDG. 18F-FDG has been a radioisotope of interest mainly because of the high uptake in tumors and the relatively short positron range. Silicon detectors have generally low detection efficiency for high energy photons and can be used for positron detection. We present a pixelated silicon positron sensitive imaging probe that has the 1.4-by-1.4-by-1.0 mm pixel size with equivalent electronic noise of ~1.2 keV FWHM. The small pixel size leads to the high spatial resolution. Probe movement in conjunction with appropriate reconstruction will allow sub-pixel…

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Silicon detector for a Compton camera in nuclear medical imaging

Electronically collimated gamma ca\-me\-ras based on Com\-pton scattering in silicon pad sensors may improve imaging in nuclear medicine and bio-medical research. The work described here concentrates on the silicon pad detector developed for a prototype Compton camera. The silicon pad sensors are read out using low noise VLSI CMOS chips and novel fast triggering chips. Depending on the application a light weight and dense packaging of sensors and its readout electronics on a hybrid is required. We describe the silicon pad sensor and their readout with the newly designed hybrid. %The silicon detector of a Compton camera %may contain up to $10^5$~analogue channels requiring %a fast and low co…

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First coincidences in pre-clinical Compton camera prototype for medical imaging

Abstract Compton collimated imaging may improve the detection of gamma rays emitted by radioisotopes used in single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT). We present a crude prototype consisting of a single 500 μm thick, 256 pad silicon detector with pad size of 1.4×1.4 mm 2 , combined with a 15×15×1 cm 3 NaI scintillator crystal coupled to a set of 20 photo multipliers. Emphasis is placed on the performance of the silicon detector and the associated read-out electronics, which has so far proved to be the most challenging part of the set-up. Results were obtained using the VATAGP3, 128 channel low-noise self-triggering ASIC as the silicon detector's front-end. The noise distribution (…

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