In this study, we developed a positron emission tomography (PET) insert for simultaneous brain imaging within 7-Tesla (7T) magnetic resonance (MR) imaging scanners. The PET insert has 18 sectors, and each sector is assembled with two-layer depth-of-interaction (DOI)-capable high-resolution block detectors. The PET scanner features a 16.7-cm-long axial field-of-view (FOV) to provide entire human brain images without bed movement. The PET scanner early digitizes a large number of block detector signals at a front-end data acquisition (DAQ) board using a novel field-programmable gate array (FPGA)-only signal digitization method. All the digitized PET data from the front-end DAQ boards are transferred using gigabit transceivers via non-magnetic high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) cables. A back-end DAQ system provides a common clock and synchronization signal for FPGAs over the HDMI cables. An active cooling system using copper heat pipes is applied for thermal regulation. All the 2.17-mm-pitch crystals with two-layer DOI information were clearly identified in the block detectors, exhibiting a system-level energy resolution of 12.6%. The PET scanner yielded clear hot-rod and Hoffman brain phantom images and demonstrated 3D PET imaging capability without bed movement. We also performed a pilot simultaneous PET/MR imaging study of a brain phantom. The PET scanner achieved a spatial resolution of 2.5 mm at the center FOV (NU 4) and a sensitivity of 18.9 kcps/MBq (NU 2) and 6.19% (NU 4) in accordance with the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) standards.

No abstract

In recent years, silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) is replacing the photomultiplier tube (PMT) in positron emission tomography (PET) systems due to its superior properties, such as fast single-photon timing response, small gap between adjacent photosensitive pixels in the array, and insensitivity to magnetic fields. One of the technical challenges when developing SiPM-based PET systems or other position-sensitive radiation detectors is the large number of output channels coming from the SiPM array. Therefore, various signal multiplexing methods have been proposed to reduce the number of output channels and the load on the subsequent data acquisition (DAQ) system. However, the large PN-junction capacitance and quenching resistance of the SiPM yield undesirable resistance–capacitance delay when multiple SiPMs are combined, which subsequently causes the accumulation of dark counts and signal fluctuation of SiPMs. Therefore, without proper SiPM signal handling and processing, the SiPMs may yield worse timing characteristics than the PMTs. This article reviews the evolution of signal readout and multiplexing methods for the SiPM. In this review, we focus primarily on analog electronics for SiPM signal multiplexing, which allows for the reduction of DAQ channels required for the SiPM-based position-sensitive detectors used in PET and other radiation detector systems. Although the applications of most technologies described in the article are not limited to PET systems, the review highlights efforts to improve the physical performance (e.g. spatial, energy, and timing resolutions) of PET detectors and systems.

Silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) is widely utilized in various positron emission tomography (PET) detectors and systems. However, the individual recording of SiPM output signals is still challenging owing to the high granularity of the SiPM; thus, charge division multiplexing is commonly used in PET detectors. Resistive charge division method is well established for reducing the number of output channels in conventional multi-channel photosensors, but it degrades the timing performance of SiPM-based PET detectors by yielding a large resistor-capacitor (RC) constant. Capacitive charge division method, on the other hand, yields a small RC constant and provides a faster timing response than the resistive method, but it suffers from an output signal undershoot. Therefore, in this study, we propose a hybrid charge division method which can be implemented by cascading the parallel combination of a resistor and a capacitor throughout the multiplexing network. In order to compare the performance of the proposed method with the conventional methods, a 16-channel Hamamatsu SiPM (S11064-050P) was coupled with a 4  ×  4 LGSO crystal block (3  ×  3  ×  20 mm) and a 9  ×  9 LYSO crystal block (1.2  ×  1.2  ×  10 mm). In addition, we tested a time-over-threshold (TOT) readout using the digitized position signals to further demonstrate the feasibility of the time-based readout of multiplexed signals based on the proposed method. The results indicated that the proposed method exhibited good energy and timing performance, thus inheriting only the advantages of conventional resistive and capacitive methods. Moreover, the proposed method showed excellent pulse shape uniformity that does not depend on the position of the interacted crystal. Accordingly, we can conclude that the hybrid charge division method is useful for effectively reducing the number of output channels of the SiPM array.

In this study, we propose a linear field-programmable gate array (FPGA)-based charge measurement method by combining a charge-to-time converter (QTC) with a single-ended memory interface (SeMI) input receiver. The QTC automatically converts the input charge into a dual-slope pulse, which has a width proportional to the input charge. Dual-slope pulses are directly digitized by the FPGA input/output (I/O) buffers configured with SeMI input receivers. A proof-of-concept comparator-less QTC/SeMI data acquisition (DAQ) system, consisting of 132 energy and 33 timing channels, was developed and applied to a prototype brain-dedicated positron emission tomography (PET) scanner. The PET scanner consisted of 14 sectors, each containing 2 × 1 block detectors, and each block detector yielded four energy signals and one timing signal. Because a single QTC/SeMI DAQ system can receive signals from up to eight sectors, two QTC/SeMI DAQ systems connected using high-speed gigabit transceivers were used to acquire data from the PET scanner. All crystals in the PET block detectors, consisting of dual-layer stacked lutetium oxyorthosilicate (LSO) scintillation crystal and silicon photomultiplier arrays, were clearly resolved in the flood maps with an excellent energy resolution. The PET images of hot-rod, cylindrical, and two-dimensional Hoffman brain phantoms were also acquired using the prototype PET scanner and two QTC/SeMI DAQ systems.