Energy, Timing and Position Resolution Studies With 16-Pixel Silicon Photomultiplier Matrices for Small Animal PET

Abstract

A high resolution small animal PET scanner that employs Silicon Photomultiplier (SiPM) matrices as photodetectors is under development at the University of Pisa and INFN Pisa. The first SHIM matrices fabricated by the Center for Scientific and Technological Research, FBK-irst (Trento, Italy), are being evaluated for this purpose. The devices are composed of 16 (4 x 4) pixel elements of 1 mm x 1 mm in a common substrate. The first tests have been carried out employing the ASIC MAROC2 for the readout. Energy and timing resolution, and position determination tests have been performed coupling both pixellated and continuous LYSO scintillator crystals to the matrix, and the results have been compared with the ones obtained for single SiPMs. The first tests on position determination with continuous crystals and SiPM matrices have been performed. An intrinsic spatial resolution of 0.61 mm FWHM has been obtained

Pulse shape discrimination performance of stilbene coupled to low-noise silicon photomultipliers

“…When coupled to a scintillating medium, these devices have been used in a variety of radiation detection and spectroscopy applications including dosimetry [3,4], medical imaging [5][6][7][8], high-energy physics [9][10][11], and homeland security [12][13][14]. Additionally, organic crystals with pulse shape discrimination (PSD) capabilities coupled to SiPMs have been shown to be capable of fast-neutron detection [15][16][17].…”

A 4D-PET block detector based on Silicon Photomultipliers

“…The high timing resolution (t) we expect will be used to perform the event TOF (Time Of Flight) so as to increase the SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio). In the framework of the INFN DASiPM (Development and Application of SiPMs) project we have deeply characterized both single elements SiPMs of different producers and matrices, and we have demonstrated that their characteristics in terms of energy resolution (below 15% FWHM), spatial resolution (0.9 mm FWHM) and time resolution (around 100 ps sigma for a single 3x3 mm 2 SiPM coupled to LSO:Ce,Ca) [1], [2] fulfill our requirements. In addition we have already developed a dedicated front-end in order to manage signals from SiPM matrices without degrading their large dynamic range [3].…”

A perimeter gated single photon avalanche diode based silicon photomultiplier as optical detector

“…However, PMTs have severe drawbacks, they are sensitive to magnetic fields and are expensive [1]. With the maturity of CMOS technologies, parallel combinations of passively quenched single photon avalanche diodes (SPADs) have been explored as replacements for the PMTs as photodetectors in nuclear applications and are known as silicon photomultipliers (SiPM) [1][2][3][4]. SiPMs have some advantages over PMT based detectors.…”