• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.7
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• pp.2567-2571
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• 2023

Scintillator materials are widely used in the medical and industrial fields for imaging systems using gamma cameras. In this study, image evaluation is performed by modeling a gamma camera system based on a lutetium-yttrium oxyorthosilicate (LYSO) scintillation detector using a pinhole collimator that can improve the spatial resolution. A LYSO detector-based gamma camera system is modeled using a Monte Carlo simulation tool. The geometric concept of the pinhole collimator is designed using various magnification factors, and the spatial resolution is measured using the acquired source image. To evaluate the resolution, the full width at half maximum (FWHM) and natural image quality assessment (NIQE), a no-reference-based parameter, are used. We confirm that the FWHM and NIQE values decrease simultaneously when the diameter of the pinhole collimator increases. Additionally, we confirm that the spatial resolution improves as the magnification factor increases under the same pinhole diameter condition. Particularly, a 0.57 mm FWHM value is obtained using the modeled gamma camera system with a LYSO scintillation detector. In conclusion, our results demonstrate that a pinhole collimator with a LYSO scintillation detector is a promising gamma camera imaging system.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.151-156
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to confirm the feasibility of imaging of therapy region from the boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) using the measurement of the prompt gamma ray depending on the neutron flux. Through the Monte Carlo simulation, we performed the verification of physical phenomena from the BNCT; (1) the effects of neutron according to the existence of boron uptake region (BUR), (2) the internal and external measurement of prompt gamma ray dose, (3) the energy spectrum by the prompt gamma ray. All simulation results were deducted using the Monte Carlo n-particle extended (MCNPX, Ver.2.6.0, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA) simulation tool. The virtual water phantom, thermal neutron source, and BURs were simulated using the MCNPX. The energy of the thermal neutron source was defined as below 1 eV with 2,000,000 n/sec flux. The prompt gamma ray was measured with the direction of beam path in the water phantom. The detector material was defined as the lutetium-yttrium oxyorthosilicate (Lu0,6Y1,4Si0,5:Ce; LYSO) scintillator with lead shielding for the collimation. The BUR's height was 5 cm with the 28 frames (bin: 0.18 cm) for the dose calculation. The neutron flux was decreased dramatically at the shallow region of BUR. In addition, the dose of prompt gamma ray was confirmed at the 9 cm depth from water surface, which is the start point of the BUR. In the energy spectrum, the prompt gamma ray peak of the 478 keV was appeared clearly with full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the 41 keV (energy resolution: 8.5%). In conclusion, the therapy region can be monitored by the gamma camera and single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) using the measurement of the prompt gamma ray during the BNCT.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.841-846
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• 2019

Effect of misalignment on the performance was evaluated for the development of time-of-flight(TOF)-PET detector. A pair of TOF-PET detector consists of Lutetium-yttrium oxyorthosilicate(LYSO) scintillation crystal with a volume of 3 mm × 3 mm × 20 mm and Geiger-mode avalanche photodiodes(GAPD) photo-sensor with a active area of 3.07 mm × 3.07 mm. Analog output signals from TOF-PET detector were sent to the pre-amplifier and then fed into the gain adjust circuit for achievement of gain homogeneity for each detector. The amplified signals were recorded and digitized by data acquisition system based on oscilloscope. The effect of the detector misalignment between LYSO and GAPD was examined for four different alignment offsets of 0.0 mm, 0.5 mm, 1.0 mm and 1.5 mm for a pair of TOF-PET detector. The photopeak position decreased from ~400 mV to ~250 mV with increasing detector misalignment. the energy resolution and time resolution were degraded from 11.6% to 16.2%, and from 477 ps to 632 ps, respectively. This study demonstrated that PET detector performance was degraded considerably depending on the detector misalignment, which would be a critical issue for the development of TOF-PET detector.