Nuclear Engineering and Technology

Korean Nuclear Society (한국원자력학회)
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Low-noise fast-response readout circuit to improve coincidence time resolution

  • Jiwoong Jung (Department of Electronic Engineering, Sogang University) ;
  • Yong Choi (Department of Electronic Engineering, Sogang University) ;
  • Seunghun Back (Department of Electronic Engineering, Sogang University) ;
  • Jin Ho Jung (Department of Electronic Engineering, Sogang University) ;
  • Sangwon Lee (Department of Electronic Engineering, Sogang University) ;
  • Yeonkyeong Kim (Department of Electronic Engineering, Sogang University)
  • Received : 2023.04.11
  • Accepted : 2023.12.01
  • Published : 2024.04.25
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Abstract

Time-of-flight (TOF) PET detectors with fast-rise-time scintillators and fast-single photon time resolution silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) have been developed to improve the coincidence timing resolution (CTR) to sub-100 ps. The CTR can be further improved with an optimal bandwidth and minimized electronic noise in the readout circuit and this helps reduce the distortion of the fast signals generated from the TOF-PET detector. The purpose of this study was to develop an ultra-high frequency and fully-differential (UF-FD) readout circuit that minimizes distortion in the fast signals produced using TOF-PET detectors, and suppresses the impact of the electronic noise generated from the detector and front-end readout circuits. The proposed UF-FD readout circuit is composed of two differential amplifiers (time) and a current feedback operational amplifier (energy). The ultra-high frequency differential (7 GHz) amplifiers can reduce the common ground noise in the fully-differential mode and minimize the distortion in the fast signal. The CTR and energy resolution were measured to evaluate the performance of the UF-FD readout circuit. These results were compared with those obtained from a high-frequency and single ended readout circuit. The experiment results indicated that the UF-FD readout circuit proposed in this study could substantially improve the best achievable CTR of TOF-PET detectors.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

This research was supported by the Korea Medical Device Development Fund grant funded by the Korea government (the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, the Ministry of Health & Welfare, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety) (No. RS-2020-KD000006/1711137869 and RS-2020-KD000017/1711137911) and by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (No. 2022R1I1A1A01064428).

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