• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.81-86
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• 2016

Background: For positron emission tomography (PET) application, cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) has been investigated by several institutes to replace detectors from a conventional system using photomultipliers or Silicon-photomultipliers (SiPMs). The spatial and energy resolution in using CZT can be superior to current scintillator-based state-of-the-art PET detectors. CZT has been under development for several years at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) to provide a high performance gamma ray detection, which needs a single crystallinity, a good uniformity, a high stopping power, and a wide band gap. Materials and Methods: Before applying our own grown CZT detectors in the prototype PET system, we investigated preliminary research with a developed discrete type data acquisition (DAQ) system for coincident events at 128 anode pixels and two common cathodes of two CZT detectors from Redlen. Each detector has a $19.4{\times}19.4{\times}6mm^3$ volume size with a 2.2 mm anode pixel pitch. Discrete amplifiers consist of a preamplifier with a gain of $8mV{\cdot}fC^{-1}$ and noise of 55 equivalent noise charge (ENC), a $CR-RC^4$ shaping amplifier with a $5{\mu}s$ peak time, and an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) driver. The DAQ system has 65 mega-sample per second flash ADC, a self and external trigger, and a USB 3.0 interface. Results and Discussion: Characteristics such as the current-to-voltage curve, energy resolution, and electron mobility life-time products for CZT detectors are investigated. In addition, preliminary results of gamma ray imaging using 511 keV of a $^{22}Na$ gamma ray source were obtained. Conclusion: In this study, the DAQ system with a CZT radiation sensor was successfully developed and a PET image was acquired by two sets of the developed DAQ system.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Medical Physics Conference
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• 2002.09a
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• pp.468-470
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• 2002

We have designed X-ray detection system and multi-channel data acquisition system for Spiral CT application. X-ray detection system consists of scintillator and photodiode. Scintillator converts X-ray into visible light. Photodiode converts visible light into electrical signal. The multi-channel data acquisition system consists of analog, digital, master and backplane board. Analog board detects electrical signal and amplifies signal by 140dB. Digital board consists of MUX(Multiplex) which routes multi-channel analog signal to preamplifier, and ADC(Analog to Digital Converter) which converts analog signal into digital signal. Master board supplies the synchronized clock and transmits the digital data to image reconstructor. Backplane provides electrical power, analog output and clock signal. The system converts the projected X-ray signal over the detector array with large gain, samples the data in each channel sequentially, and the sampled data are transmitted to host computer in a given time frame. To meet the timing limitation, this system is very flexible since it is implemented by FPGA(Field Programmable Gate Array). This system must have a high-speed operation with low noise and high SNR(signal to noise ratio), wide dynamic range to get a high resolution image.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.205-212
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• 1999

When we want to observe and record a patient's EEG in an operating room, the operation of electrosurgical unit(ESU) causes undesirable artifacts with high frequency and high voltage. These artifacts make the amplifiers of the conventional EEG system saturated and prevent the system from measuring the EEG signal. This paper describes a high-performance bipolar EEG amplifier for a CSA (compressed spectral array ) system with reduced ESU artifacts. The designed EEG amplifier uses a balanced filter to reduce the ESU artifacts, and isolates the power supply and the signal source of the preamplifier from the ground to cut off the current from the ESU to the amplifier ground. To cancel the common mode noise in high frequency, a high CMRR(common mode rejection ratio) diffferential amplifier is used. Since the developed bipolar EEG amplifier shows high gain, low noise, high CMRR, high input impedance, and low thermal drift, it is possible to observe and record more clean EEG signals in spite of ESU operation. Therefore the amplifier may be applicable to a high-fidelity CSA system.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.81-88
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• 2014

Recently, a new imaging method, gamma vertex imaging (GVI), was proposed for the verification of in-vivo proton dose distribution. In GVI, the vertices of prompt gammas generated by proton induced nuclear interaction were determined by tracking the Compton-recoiled electrons. The GVI system is composed of a beryllium electron converter for converting gamma to electron, two double-sided silicon strip detectors (DSSDs) for the electron tracking, and a scintillation detector for the energy determination of the electron. In the present study, the modules of a charge sensitive preamplifier (CSP) and a shaping amplifier for the analog signal processing of DSSD were developed and the performances were evaluated by comparing the energy resolutions with those of the commercial products. Based on the results, it was confirmed that the energy resolution of the developed CSP module was a little lower than that of the CR-113 (Cremat, Inc., MA), and the resolution of the shaping amplifier was similar to that of the CR-200 (Cremat, Inc., MA). The value of $V_{rms}$ representing the magnitude of noise of the developed system was estimated as 6.48 keV and it was confirmed that the trajectory of the electron can be measured by the developed system considering the minimum energy deposition ( > ~51 keV) of Compton-recoiled electron in 145-${\mu}m$-thick DSSD.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.08a
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• pp.234-234
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• 2010

The PR transitions in asymmetric dot-in-double-quantum-well (DdWELL) photodetector is identified by bias-dependent spectral behaviors. Discrete n-i-n infrared photodetectors were fabricated on a 30-period asymmetric InAs-QD/[InGaAs/GaAs]/AlGaAs DdWELL wafer that was prepared by MBE technique. A 2.0-monolayer (ML) InAs QD ensemble was embedded in upper combined well of InGaAs/GaAs and each stack is separated by a 50-nm AlGaAs barrier. Each pixel has circular aperture of 300 um in diameter, and the mesa cell ($410{\times}410\;{\mu}m^2$) was defined by shallow etching. PR measurements were performed in the spectral range of $3{\sim}13\;{\mu}m$ (~ 100-400 meV) by using a Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometer and a low-noise preamplifier. The asymmetric photodetector exhibits unique transition behaviors that near-/far-infrared (NIR/FIR) photoresponse (PR) bands are blue/red shifted by the electric field, contrasted to mid-infrared (MIR) with no dependence. In addition, the MIR-FIR dual-band spectra change into single-band feature by the polarity. A four-level energy band model is proposed for the transition scheme, and the field dependence of FIR bands numerically calculated by a simplified DdWELL structure is in good agreement with that of the PR spectra. The wavelength shift by the field strength and the spectral change by the polarity are discussed on the basis of four-level transition.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.51 no.12
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• pp.66-71
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• 2014

This paper presents an analog front-end integrated circuit (IC) for medical ultrasound imaging systems using standard $0.18-{\mu}m$ CMOS process. The proposed front-end circuit includes the transmit part which consists of 15-V high-voltage pulser operating at 2.6 MHz, and the receive part which consists of switch and a low-power low-noise preamplifier. Depending on the operation mode, the output driver in the transmit pulser can be reconfigured as the switch in the receive path and thus the area of the overall front-end IC is reduced by over 70% in comparison to previous work. The designed single-channel front-end prototype consumes less than $0.045mm^2$ of core area and can be utilized as a key building block in highly-integrated multi-array ultrasound medical imaging systems.