• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제52권2호
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• pp.360-365
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• 2020

A technique for the reduction of pulse pile-up effect in digital pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) of neutrons and gamma-rays with organic scintillation detectors is presented. The technique is based on an electronic reduction of the effective decay-time constant of scintillation pulses while retaining the PSD information of the pulses. The experimental results obtained with a NE213 liquid scintillation detector in a mixed radiation field of neutrons and gamma-rays are presented, demonstrating a figure of merit (FOM) of 1.20 ± 0.05 with an energy threshold of 350 keVee (electron equivalent energy) when the effective length of the pulses is reduced to 50 ns.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제35권2호
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• pp.165-170
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• 2003

We developed an improved 3-PM liquid scintillation counting (3-PM LSC) method in which three detectors can be displaced to back and forth directions, and a data acquisition system being able to provide the values for all parameters required for the method. The detectors are entirely located in a 20-mm lead chamber of an inner diameter of 500 mm. A saw-toothed gear ties up all detectors so as to move them uniformly, up to 50 mm with unit of 1 mm. The data acquisition system was designed in an integrated circuit to perform the necessary works such as fast amplification, discrimination, coincidence and logic analysis. It generates values of nine parameters among twelve's generated in the 3-PH LSC method. The dead time of each counting channel is of extending type, valving from 10 to 100 $mutextrm{s}$. We measured the TDCR values with an unquenched liquid scintillation source 1"C by displacing the detectors with a step of 2.5 mm away from counting vial. Their values were derived on the range from 0.9 to 0.6. The extent is three times wider than those regions observed by applying the defocalization technique.ique.

• 핵의학기술
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• 제27권2호
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• pp.129-132
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• 2023

Purpose: Positron emisson tomography (PET) is a crucial medical imaging scanner for the detection of cancer lesions. In order to maintain the improved image quality, it is crucial to apply detectors of superior performance. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to compare PET image quality using Monte Carlo simulation based on the detector materials of BGO, LSO, and LuAP. Materials and Methods: The Geant4 Application for Tomographic Emission (GATE) was used to design the PET detector. Scintillations with BGO, LSO and LuAP were modelled, with a size of 3.95 × 5.3 mm2 (width × height) and 25.0 mm (thickness). The PET detector consisted of 34 blocks per ring and a total of 4 rings. A line source of 1 MBq was modelled and acquired with a radius of 1 mm and length of 20 mm for 20 seconds. The acquired image was reconstructed maximum likelihood expectation maximization with 2 iteration and 10 subsets. The count comparison was carried out. Results and Discussion: The highest true, random, and scatter counts were obtained from the BGO scintillation detector compared to LSO and LuAP. Conclusion: The BGO scintillation detector material indicated excellent performance in terms of detection of gamma rays from emitted PET phantom.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• 제30권1호
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• pp.27-30
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• 2005

New possibilities are discussed for cholesteric liquid crystals (CLC) as sensor materials for detection of ionizing radiation, biologically active UV radiation, and the presence of hazardous vapors in atmosphere. A distinguishing property of CLC-based detectors is their 'bioequivalence', i.e., mechanisms of their response to external factors essentially imitate the corresponding mechanisms of biological tissues. Such detectors can ensure sufficiently high sensitivity to make feasible their use as alarm indicators or in biophysical studies. Specific examples ate given of sensor compositions and their response characteristics.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권8호
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• pp.2640-2645
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• 2021

We report the development of a gamma-ray imaging device, named Large-Area Hybrid Gamma Imager (LAHGI), featuring high imaging sensitivity and good imaging resolution over a broad energy range. A hybrid collimation method, which combines mechanical and electronic collimation, is employed for a stable imaging performance based on large-area scintillation detectors for high imaging sensitivity. The system comprises two monolithic position-sensitive NaI(Tl) scintillation detectors with a crystal area of 27 × 27 cm² and a tungsten coded aperture mask with a modified uniformly redundant array (MURA) pattern. The performance of the system was evaluated under several source conditions. The system showed good imaging resolution (i.e., 6.0-8.9° FWHM) for the entire energy range of 59.5-1330 keV considered in the present study. It also showed very high imaging sensitivity, successfully imaging a 253 µCi ¹³⁷Cs source located 15 m away in 1 min; this performance is notable considering that the dose rate at the front surface of the system, due to the existence of the ¹³⁷Cs source, was only 0.003 µSv/h, which corresponds to ~3% of the background level.

• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
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• 제42권2호
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• pp.88-97
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• 2008

In this review paper, basic configurations of gamma detectors in SPECT and PET systems were reviewed together with key performance parameters of the imaging system, such as the detection efficiency, the spatial resolution, the contrast resolution, and the data acquisition time for quick understanding of the system-component relationship and future design of advanced systems. Also key elements of SPECT and PET detectors, such as collimators, gamma detectors were discussed in conjunction with their current and future trend. Especially development trend of new scintillation crystals, innovative silicon-based photo-sensors and futuristic room-temperature semiconductor detectors were reviewed for researchers who are interested in the development of future nuclear medical imaging instruments.

• 한국방사선학회논문지
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• 제16권3호
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• pp.249-255
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• 2022

소동물용 양전자방출단층촬영기기는 매우 작은 장기를 영상화하기 위해 매우 높은 공간분해능을 지닌다. 우수한 공간분해능을 획득하기 위해서는 매우 작은 섬광 픽셀을 사용하여 시스템을 구성해야 한다. 매우 작은 섬광 픽셀을 사용하여 검출기를 구성할 경우 광센서 픽셀에 따라 적용가능한 배열의 크기가 달라진다. 이전 연구에서 광센서 크기에 따른 최대의 섬광 픽셀 배열을 찾는 연구를 수행하였다. 본 연구에서는 더 확장된 섬광 픽셀 배열을 사용하여 검출기를 구성하기 위해 광가이드를 적용한 검출기를 설계하여 모든 섬광 픽셀들이 영상화되는 최대의 배열을 찾고자 한다. 섬광체로 이루어진 검출기의 시뮬레이션이 가능한 DETECT2000을 사용하여 검출기를 설계하였다. 11 × 11 섬광 픽셀 배열에서부터 16 × 16 배열까지 검출기를 구성하여 시뮬레이션을 수행하였다. 섬광 픽셀에서 발생된 빛을 광센서로 수집하여 평면 영상을 획득한 후 영상의 분석을 통해 겹침이 발생하지 않는 최대의 배열을 찾았다. 그 결과 겹침이 발생하지 않고 모든 섬광 픽셀들이 구분 가능한 최대의 배열은 15 × 15 배열이었다.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• 제46권4호
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• pp.204-212
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• 2021

Background: Identification of radioisotopes for plastic scintillation detectors is challenging because their spectra have poor energy resolutions and lack photo peaks. To overcome this weakness, many researchers have conducted radioisotope identification studies using machine learning algorithms; however, the effect of data normalization on radioisotope identification has not been addressed yet. Furthermore, studies on machine learning-based radioisotope identifiers for plastic scintillation detectors are limited. Materials and Methods: In this study, machine learning-based radioisotope identifiers were implemented, and their performances according to data normalization methods were compared. Eight classes of radioisotopes consisting of combinations of ²²Na, ⁶⁰Co, and ¹³⁷Cs, and the background, were defined. The training set was generated by the random sampling technique based on probabilistic density functions acquired by experiments and simulations, and test set was acquired by experiments. Support vector machine (SVM), artificial neural network (ANN), and convolutional neural network (CNN) were implemented as radioisotope identifiers with six data normalization methods, and trained using the generated training set. Results and Discussion: The implemented identifiers were evaluated by test sets acquired by experiments with and without gain shifts to confirm the robustness of the identifiers against the gain shift effect. Among the three machine learning-based radioisotope identifiers, prediction accuracy followed the order SVM > ANN > CNN, while the training time followed the order SVM > ANN > CNN. Conclusion: The prediction accuracy for the combined test sets was highest with the SVM. The CNN exhibited a minimum variation in prediction accuracy for each class, even though it had the lowest prediction accuracy for the combined test sets among three identifiers. The SVM exhibited the highest prediction accuracy for the combined test sets, and its training time was the shortest among three identifiers.

• 한국결정성장학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국결정성장학회 1997년도 Proceedings of the 12th KACG Technical Meeting and the 4th Korea-Japan EMGS (Electronic Materials Growth Symposium)
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• pp.131-134
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• 1997

Scintillation crystals for industrial field are used in fundamental physics i.e. nuclear and high energy physics experiments besides the medical imaging, process control and gauging, container inspection, mineral process etc. For the reason of limited marketability, there are not so many studies with emphasis paced on the crystal growth. The scintillation crystal is an important theme in the studies in the fundamental physics and researchers for crystal growth are expected participate it. The present work is partly supported by a Grant-in-Aid from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Science and Culture.

• 한국방사선학회논문지
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• 제15권5호
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• pp.749-754
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• 2021

적은 수의 광센서를 사용한 PET 검출기의 섬광 픽셀과 광센서의 매칭 비율을 최대화하기 위해 다양한 섬광 픽셀의 배열과 4개의 광센서를 사용하였다. 섬광 픽셀의 배열은 6 × 6에서부터 11 × 11까지 여섯 케이스로 구성하였다. 광센서간의 간격은 모든 섬광 픽셀에서 동일하게 적용하였으며, 섬광 픽셀의 크기를 줄여 배열을 확장하였다. 설계한 PET 검출기들의 평면 영상 획득을 위해 빛 시뮬레이션이 가능한 DETECT 2000을 사용하였다. 각 섬광 픽셀 배열의 중심에서 소멸방사선과 섬광 픽셀의 상호작용을 통해 생성된 빛을 발생시켜, 4개의 광센서를 통해 빛을 검출한 후 평면 영상을 재구성하였다. 재구성한 평면 영상을 통해 모든 섬광 픽셀들이 구분이 가능한 최대의 배열을 찾았다. 그 결과 8 × 8 섬광 픽셀 배열의 평면 영상에서 모든 섬광 픽셀들이 구분이 가능하였으며, 9 × 9 섬광 픽셀 평면 영상에서부터는 가장자리 두 섬광 픽셀들이 서로 겹쳐 영상에 나타났다. 이때의 섬광 픽셀과 광센서의 매칭 비율은 16:1이었다. 본 검출기를 사용하여 PET 시스템을 구성할 경우, 사용하는 광센서의 수가 감소되고 이에 따른 신호처리 회로의 간소화를 통해 전체 시스템의 비용을 감소시킬 것으로 기대된다.