A beta-gamma position-sensitive detector based on rod plastic scintillators and artificial neural networks

Abstract

Mixed fields of gamma and beta radiations may exist under different conditions such as radiation dosimetry, PET medical imaging, medical therapy treatments, space radiation detection, etc. In these circumstances, it is important to determine the dose rate, intensity, incident position of the beta particles and gamma radiation separately. In this work, a radiation detector was developed, which could monitor the incident position and type of beta particles and gamma rays in the mixed radiation fields. The detector consisted of an ø 5.5 × 5 cm rod plastic scintillator coupled to a 2′′ photomultiplier at one end. 137Cs and 147Pm were employed as gamma and beta sources, respectively. Two sources were placed in different positions in front of the detector and the related spectra were recorded using a multi-channel analyzer. An artificial neural network consisting of a three-layer perceptron was developed and trained using the recorded mixed gamma and beta spectra to predict their type and position.

A Comprehensive Survey of Readout Strategies for SiPMs Used in Nuclear Imaging Systems

“…For conventional analog SiPM arrays, typical position sensing may require a large number of readout channels and may show limited position resolution due to the SiPM's pixel size [208]. To achieve higher spatial resolution, artificial neural networks [131,209] and novel position-sensitive SiPM (PS-SiPM) fabrication processes [210,211] can increase the position sensing performance. Multiplexing [25,212] and multi-channel integrated readouts [164,213,214] simplify the readout and improve performance characteristics (Figure 15).…”

Industrial gamma-ray computed tomography utilizing rod plastic scintillators

“…One type of the detectors that can be employed in such tomography systems are high aspect ratio scintillators. The possibility of detecting the incident position of gamma-rays with scintillation rod detectors has already been studied and investigated [7][8][9][10]. This ability of the rod scintillators makes them as a candidate for employing in gamma/x-ray industrial computed tomography systems suitable for large objects.…”

Monte Carlo study of plastic rod scintillators for use in industrial computed tomography

“…It was shown that this type of scintillator is inherently positionsensitive and can be employed as linear detectors for gamma/x-ray imaging and tomography purposes. In the proposed system, we used inorganic scintillators (such as NaI(Tl) or CsI(Na)) instead of organic scintillators (such as plastic or liquid scintillators) because the organic scintillators have a low atomic number and therefore their absorption efficiency is lower than the inorganic scintillators [24]- [27]. Furthermore, due to their small photoelectric cross-section, these scintillators do not show photopeak in their spectral response.…”