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 (…