A multiplexed TOF and DOI capable PET detector using a binary position sensitive network.

Time of flight (TOF) and depth of interaction (DOI) capabilities can significantly enhance the quality and uniformity of positron emission tomography (PET) images. Many proposed TOF/DOI PET detectors require complex readout systems using additional photosensors, active cooling, or waveform sampling. This work describes a high performance, low complexity, room temperature TOF/DOI PET module. The module uses multiplexed timing channels to significantly reduce the electronic readout complexity of the PET detector while maintaining excellent timing, energy, and position resolution. DOI was determined using a two layer light sharing scintillation crystal array with a novel binary position sensitive network. A 20 mm effective thickness LYSO crystal array with four 3 mm × 3 mm silicon photomultipliers (SiPM) read out by a single timing channel, one energy channel and two position channels achieved a full width half maximum (FWHM) coincidence time resolution of 180 ± 2 ps with 10 mm of DOI resolution and 11% energy resolution. With sixteen 3 mm × 3 mm SiPMs read out by a single timing channel, one energy channel and four position channels a coincidence time resolution 204 ± 1 ps was achieved with 10 mm of DOI resolution and 15% energy resolution. The methods presented here could significantly simplify the construction of high performance TOF/DOI PET detectors.

Analog filtering methods improve leading edge timing performance of multiplexed SiPMs.

Multiplexing many SiPMs to a single readout channel is an attractive option to reduce the readout complexity of high performance time of flight (TOF) PET systems. However, the additional dark counts and shaping from each SiPM cause significant baseline fluctuations in the output waveform, degrading timing measurements using a leading edge threshold. This work proposes the use of a simple analog filtering network to reduce the baseline fluctuations in highly multiplexed SiPM readouts. With 16 SiPMs multiplexed, the FWHM coincident timing resolution for single [Formula: see text] mm LYSO crystals was improved from 401 ± 4 ps without filtering to 248 ± 5 ps with filtering. With 4 SiPMs multiplexed, using an array of [Formula: see text] mm LFS crystals the mean time resolution was improved from 436 ± 6 ps to 249 ± 2 ps. Position information was acquired with a novel binary positioning network. All experiments were performed at room temperature with no active temperature regulation. These results show a promising technique for the construction of high performance multiplexed TOF PET readout systems using analog leading edge timing pickoff.

Achieving fast timing performance with multiplexed SiPMs.

Using time of flight (ToF) measurements for positron emission tomography (PET) is an attractive avenue for increasing the signal to noise (SNR) ratio of PET images. However, achieving excellent time resolution required for high SNR gain using silicon photomultipliers (SiPM) requires many resource heavy high bandwidth readout channels. A method of multiplexing many SiPM signals into a single electronic channel would greatly simplify ToF PET systems. However, multiplexing SiPMs degrades time resolution because of added dark counts and signal shaping. In this work the relative contribution of dark counts and signal shaping to timing degradation is simulated and a baseline correction technique to mitigate the effect of multiplexing on the time resolution of analog SiPMs is simulated and experimentally verified. A charge sharing network for multiplexing is proposed and tested. Results show a full width at half maximum (FWHM) coincidence time resolution of [Formula: see text] ps for a single 3 mm × 3 mm × 20 mm LYSO scintillation crystals coupled to an array of sixteen 3 mm × 3 mm SiPMs that are multiplexed to a single timing channel (in addition to 4 position channels). A [Formula: see text] array of 3 mm × 3 mm × 20 mm LFS crystals showed an average FWHM coincidence time resolution of [Formula: see text] ps using the same timing scheme. All experiments were performed at room temperature with no thermal regulation. These results show that excellent time resolution for ToF can be achieved with a highly multiplexed analog SiPM readout.

Analog electro-optical readout of SiPMs achieves fast timing required for time-of-flight PET/MR.

The design of combined positron emission tomography/magnetic resonance (PET/MR) systems presents a number of challenges to engineers, as it forces the PET system to acquire data in a space constrained environment that is sensitive to electro-magnetic interference and contains high static, radio frequency and gradient fields. In this work we validate fast timing performance of a PET scintillation detector using a potentially very compact, very low power, and MR compatible readout method in which analog silicon photomultipliers (SiPM) signals are transmitted optically away from the MR bore with little or even no additional readout electronics. This analog 'electro-optial' method could reduce the entire PET readout in the MR bore to two compact, low power components (SiPMs and lasers). Our experiments show fast timing performance from analog electro-optical readout with and without pre-amplification. With 3 mm × 3 mm × 20 mm lutetium-yttrium oxyorthosilicate (LYSO) crystals and Excelitas SiPMs the best two-sided fwhm coincident timing resolution achieved was 220 +/- 3 ps in electrical mode, 230 +/- 2 ps in electro-optical with preamp mode, and 253 +/- 2 ps in electro-optical without preamp mode. Timing measurements were also performed with Hamamatsu SiPMs and 3 mm × 3 mm × 5 mm crystals. In the future the timing degradation seen can be further reduced with lower laser noise or improvements SiPM rise time or gain.

Readout strategy of an electro-optical coupled PET detector for time-of-flight PET/MRI.

Combining PET with MRI in a single system provides clinicians with complementary molecular and anatomical information. However, existing integrated PET/MRI systems do not have time-of-flight (ToF) PET capabilities. This work describes an MRI-compatible front-end electronic system with ToF capabilities. The approach employs a fast arrival-time pickoff comparator to digitize the timing information, and a laser diode to drive a 10 m fiber-optic cable to optically transmit asynchronous timing information to a photodiode receiver readout system. The FWHM jitter of the comparator and this electo-optical link is 11.5 ps in response to a fast digital pulse. When configured with LYSO scintillation crystals and Hamamatsu MPPC silicon photo-multipliers the comparator and electro-optical link achieved a 511 keV coincidence time resolution of 254.7 ps +/- 8.0 ps FWHM with 3 × 3 × 20 mm(3) crystals and 166.5 +/- 2.5 ps FWHM with 3 × 3 × 5 mm(3) crystals.

Compact pulse width modulation circuitry for silicon photomultiplier readout.

The adoption of solid-state photodetectors for positron emission tomography (PET) system design and the interest in 3D interaction information from PET detectors has lead to an increasing number of readout channels in PET systems. To handle these additional readout channels, PET readout electronics should be simplified to reduce the power consumption, cost, and size of the electronics for a single channel. Pulse-width modulation (PWM), where detector pulses are converted to digital pulses with width proportional to the detected photon energy, promises to simplify PET readout by converting the signals to digital form at the beginning of the processing chain, and allowing a single time-to-digital converter to perform the data acquisition for many channels rather than routing many analogue channels and digitizing in the back end. Integrator based PWM systems, also known as charge-to-time converters (QTCs), are especially compact, reducing the front-end electronics to an op-amp integrator with a resistor discharge, and a comparator. QTCs, however, have a long dead-time during which dark count noise is integrated, reducing the output signal-to-noise ratio. This work presents a QTC based PWM circuit with a gated integrator that shows performance improvements over existing QTC based PWM. By opening and closing an analogue switch on the input of the integrator, the circuit can be controlled to integrate only the portions of the signal with a high signal-to-noise ratio. It also allows for multiplexing different detectors into the same PWM circuit while avoiding uncorrelated noise propagation between photodetector channels. Four gated integrator PWM circuits were built to readout the spatial channels of two position sensitive solid-state photomultiplier (PS-SSPM). Results show a 4 × 4 array 0.9 mm × 0.9 mm × 15 mm of LYSO crystals being identified on the 5 mm × 5 mm PS-SSPM at room temperature with no degradation for twofold multiplexing. In principle, much larger multiplexing ratios are possible, limited only by count rate issues.