TY - JOUR
T1 - An Efficient Detector Production Method for Position-Sensitive Scintillation Detector Arrays with 98% Detector Packing Fraction
AU - Uribe, Jorge
AU - Wong, Wai Hoi
AU - Baghaei, Hossain
AU - Farrell, Rocio
AU - Li, Hongdi
AU - Aykac, Mehmet
AU - Bilgen, D.
AU - Liu, Yaqiang
AU - Wang, Yu
AU - Xing, Tao
N1 - Funding Information:
Manuscript received December 3, 2002; revised July 20, 2003. This work was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under Grants RO1 CA58980, RO1 CA61880, RO1 CA76246, and RO1 CA58980S1, by the Texas Higher Education Advanced Technology Grant, by the John S. Dunn Foundation under a Research Grant, by The Mike Hogg Foundation, and by the Cobb Foundation for Cancer Research.
PY - 2003/10
Y1 - 2003/10
N2 - Position-sensitive scintillation-detector arrays (PSSDAs) are used in nuclear-imaging methods such as PET. The kind of technique selected in producing the PSSDA determines the imaging resolution, sensitivity, labor/part cost, and reliability of the system. Production of PSSDA is especially challenging and costly for ultra-high-resolution systems that have large numbers of very small crystal needles, so we developed a new slab-sandwich-slice (SSS) production method. Instead of using individual crystal needles, the construction started with crystal slabs that are 15-crystal-needles wide and 1-needle thick. White-paint was deposited onto slab surfaces to form shaped optical windows. The painted slabs were grouped into two crystal-sandwich types. Each sandwich type consisted of a stack of seven slabs painted with a distinctive set of optical windows, held together with optical glue. For a 40 000-crystal system, only 192 type A and 144 type B sandwiches are needed. Sandwiches were crosscut into another slab formation ("slices"). Each slice was again 1-needle thick; each slice was basically a stack of needles glued together, optically coupled by the glue and the painted windows. After a second set of white-paint optical-windows was applied on the slices' surface, three slices of type B were grouped between four slices of type A to form a 7 × 7 PSSDA. We used SSS production method to build 7 × 7, 7 × 8 and 8 × 8 crystal blocks needed for a high-resolution 12-module prototype PET camera. The method reduced the more than 400 000 precision painting and gluing steps into 55 500 steps for a 40 000-BGO-crystal system, thus lowering the labor cost. The detectors fabricated with the method were of high quality: 2.66 mm × 2.66 mm crystals were separated by only a 0.06-mm gap for a 98% linear detector packing fraction or 96% area packing fraction. Compared to 90% linear-packing (81% area) from conventional methods, the 20% increase in packing density translates into as much as a 1.2 to 1.4 coincidence sensitivity in PET. Crystal cost was halved, and production yield increased to 94%. It generated very small crystal-positioning errors (σ = 0.09 mm), required for ultrahigh resolution detectors.
AB - Position-sensitive scintillation-detector arrays (PSSDAs) are used in nuclear-imaging methods such as PET. The kind of technique selected in producing the PSSDA determines the imaging resolution, sensitivity, labor/part cost, and reliability of the system. Production of PSSDA is especially challenging and costly for ultra-high-resolution systems that have large numbers of very small crystal needles, so we developed a new slab-sandwich-slice (SSS) production method. Instead of using individual crystal needles, the construction started with crystal slabs that are 15-crystal-needles wide and 1-needle thick. White-paint was deposited onto slab surfaces to form shaped optical windows. The painted slabs were grouped into two crystal-sandwich types. Each sandwich type consisted of a stack of seven slabs painted with a distinctive set of optical windows, held together with optical glue. For a 40 000-crystal system, only 192 type A and 144 type B sandwiches are needed. Sandwiches were crosscut into another slab formation ("slices"). Each slice was again 1-needle thick; each slice was basically a stack of needles glued together, optically coupled by the glue and the painted windows. After a second set of white-paint optical-windows was applied on the slices' surface, three slices of type B were grouped between four slices of type A to form a 7 × 7 PSSDA. We used SSS production method to build 7 × 7, 7 × 8 and 8 × 8 crystal blocks needed for a high-resolution 12-module prototype PET camera. The method reduced the more than 400 000 precision painting and gluing steps into 55 500 steps for a 40 000-BGO-crystal system, thus lowering the labor cost. The detectors fabricated with the method were of high quality: 2.66 mm × 2.66 mm crystals were separated by only a 0.06-mm gap for a 98% linear detector packing fraction or 96% area packing fraction. Compared to 90% linear-packing (81% area) from conventional methods, the 20% increase in packing density translates into as much as a 1.2 to 1.4 coincidence sensitivity in PET. Crystal cost was halved, and production yield increased to 94%. It generated very small crystal-positioning errors (σ = 0.09 mm), required for ultrahigh resolution detectors.
KW - Photodetectors
KW - Position sensitive detectors
KW - Positron emission tomography (PET)
KW - Quadrant sharing detectors
KW - Scintillation detectors
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U2 - 10.1109/TNS.2003.817959
DO - 10.1109/TNS.2003.817959
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:10744226730
SN - 0018-9499
VL - 50
SP - 1469
EP - 1476
JO - IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science
JF - IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science
IS - 5
ER -