Digital silicon photomultiplier readout of a new fast and bright scintillation crystal (Ce:GFAG)

Yong Seok Lee, Hyun Tae Leem, Seiichi Yamamoto, Yong Choi, Kei Kamada, Akira Yoshikawa, Sang Geon Park, Jung Yeol Yeom*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

A new Gadolinium Fine Aluminum Gallate (Ce:GFAG) scintillation crystal with both high energy resolution and fast timing properties has successfully been grown. Compared to Gd3Al2Ga3O12 (Ce:GAGG), this new inorganic scintillation crystal has a high luminosity similar to and a faster decay time. In this paper, we report on the timing and energy performance results of the new GFAG scintillation crystal read out with digital silicon photomultipliers (dSiPM) for positron emission tomography (PET) application. The best coincidence resolving time (FWHM) of polished 3×3×5 mm3 crystals was 223±6 ps for GFAG crystals compared to 396±28 ps for GAGG crystals and 131±3 ps for LYSO crystals respectively. An energy resolution (511 keV peak of Na-22) of 10.9±0.2% was attained with GFAG coupled to dSiPM after correcting for saturation effect, compared to 9.5±0.3% for Ce:GAGG crystals and 11.9±0.4% for LYSO crystals respectively. It is expected that this new scintillator may be competitive in terms of overall properties such as energy resolution, timing resolution and growing (raw material) cost, compared to existing scintillators for positron emission tomography (PET).

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)63-67
Number of pages5
JournalNuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment
Volume832
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2016 Oct 1
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Digital silicon photomultipliers
  • Gamma-ray spectroscopy
  • GFAG
  • PET
  • Scintillators
  • SPECT

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Nuclear and High Energy Physics
  • Instrumentation

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