Bonn 2020 – scientific programme

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ST: Fachverband Strahlen- und Medizinphysik

ST 5: Combined detector session: EP, HK, ST, T (joint session HK/EP/ST/T)

ST 5.3: Invited Talk

Wednesday, April 1, 2020, 17:30–18:00, H-HS X

Experimental time resolution limits of modern SiPMs and TOF-PET detectors — •Stefan Gundacker — CERN, Esplanade de Particules 1, 1211 Meyrin, Switzerland — UniMIB, Piazza dell’Ateneo Nuovo, 1-20126, Milano, Italy

Time Of Flight (TOF) information applied in Positron Emission Tomography (PET) has shown to improve the image quality, shorten scan times and reduces the patient radiation dose. A Coincidence Time Resolution (CTR) in the range of 20 ps FWHM would enable to access image voxels of 3x3x3mm³ along the line of response and is likely to revolutionize clinical PET. Inorganic scintillator-based detectors are able to record the 511 keV annihilation gammas with high sensitivity and have strongly benefited from the appearance of solid-state photodetectors (e.g. the SiPM), new crystal types (e.g. LYSO:Ce codoped with divalent ions) and improved front-end electronic readout. Such developments enabled commercial PET systems to achieve CTRs around 210 ps FWHM (Siemens Biograph vision). Nevertheless, a complete assessment of state-of-the-art scintillators and SiPMs in terms of their currently achievable time resolution limits was still missing and will be given in this paper. That is important, as it helps to define future strategies and directions of research in order to improve the system CTR by at least an order of magnitude. Furthermore, general aspects of the theoretical CTR limits in TOF-PET will be discussed along with some considerations on how to bring promising laboratory results into real world medical applications.