Jan W T Heemskerk et al 2009 Phys. Med. Biol. 54 3003 doi:10.1088/0031-9155/54/10/003
Jan W T Heemskerk1,2, Marc A N Korevaar1,2, Rob Kreuger2, C M Ligtvoet3, Paul Schotanus4 and Freek J Beekman1,2,5
Show affiliationsHigh-resolution imaging of x-ray and gamma-ray distributions can be achieved with cameras that use charge coupled devices (CCDs) for detecting scintillation light flashes. The energy and interaction position of individual gamma photons can be determined by rapid processing of CCD images of individual flashes. Here we investigate the improvement of such a gamma camera when a micro-machined retro-reflector is used to increase the light output of a continuous scintillation crystal. At 122 keV we found that retro-reflectors improve the intrinsic energy resolution (full width at half maximum (FWHM)) by 32% (from 50% to 34%) and the signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio by 18%. The spatial resolution (FWHM) was improved by about 4%, allowing us to obtain a resolution of 159 µm. The full width at tenth maximum (FWTM) improvement was 13%. Therefore, this enhancement is a next step towards realizing compact high-resolution devices for imaging gamma emitters.
For more information on this article see medicalphysicsweb.org
87.57.U- Nuclear medicine imaging
Issue 10 (21 May 2009)
Received 30 January 2009, in final form 27 February 2009
Published 23 April 2009
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