Energy and timing measurement of a PET detector with time-based readout electronics

Yiping Shao, Xishan Sun, Kejian A. Lan, Chad Bircher, Zhi Deng, Yinong Liu

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

New time-based readout (TBR) electronics has been developed and evaluated for its performance and application for PET detectors. It consists of a leading edge (LE) timing threshold for timing pickoff that provides a signal timing t1; a charge integration followed by a constant discharge between two specific timings t2 and t3 that are used to directly measure the signal energy. The timing-walk error caused by LE from signals of different amplitudes can be measured with t1 as a function of different signal amplitudes that is proportional to the time difference between t2 and t3. With this pre-calibration, timing-walk error can be accurately corrected. Therefore, both signal timing and energy can be accurately measured with digital timing signals without using CFD and ADC. These timing signals were controlled and in principle can be measured by an FPGA that can apply many signal logic and data correction algorithms. A single channel discrete component TBR circuit has been implemented in PC board, and 8-channel ASIC chips have been developed for feasibility evaluations and PET detector applications. Initial functionality and performance evaluations have been conducted. Signal amplitude measurement accuracy and linearity are very good; the measured timing accuracy from a pulse is the same as a standard CFD and reaches to 100 ps resolution with the test setup. Both suitable energy and coincidence timing resolutions (17% and 1.0-2.0 ns) were achieved with PMT or Solid-State PM (SSPM) array based PET detectors. Initial studies to acquire flood source crystal identification map has demonstrated the advantages of applying parallel readout with TBR electronics that read out and process signals from each pixel of SSPM array independently. With its relatively simple circuit and low cost, TBR electronics is expected to provide suitable front-end signal readout electronics for compact photon detectors such as SSPM array that require large number of output channels and demand high performance in energy and timing.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationIEEE Nuclear Science Symposuim and Medical Imaging Conference, NSS/MIC 2010
Pages2504-2509
Number of pages6
DOIs
StatePublished - 2010
Event2010 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium, Medical Imaging Conference, NSS/MIC 2010 and 17th International Workshop on Room-Temperature Semiconductor X-ray and Gamma-ray Detectors, RTSD 2010 - Knoxville, TN, United States
Duration: Oct 30 2010Nov 6 2010

Publication series

NameIEEE Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record
ISSN (Print)1095-7863

Other

Other2010 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium, Medical Imaging Conference, NSS/MIC 2010 and 17th International Workshop on Room-Temperature Semiconductor X-ray and Gamma-ray Detectors, RTSD 2010
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityKnoxville, TN
Period10/30/1011/6/10

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Radiation
  • Nuclear and High Energy Physics
  • Radiology Nuclear Medicine and imaging

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