title: Optical simulation of monolithic scintillator detectors using GATE/GEANT4.
abstract: Much research is being conducted on position-sensitive scintillation detectors for medical imaging, particularly for emission tomography. Monte Carlo simulations play an essential role in many of these research activities. As the scintillation process, the transport of scintillation photons through the crystal(s), and the conversion of these photons into electronic signals each have a major influence on the detector performance; all of these processes may need to be incorporated in the model to obtain accurate results. In this work the optical and scintillation models of the GEANT4 simulation toolkit are validated by comparing simulations and measurements on monolithic scintillator detectors for high-resolution positron emission tomography (PET). We have furthermore made the GEANT4 optical models available within the user-friendly GATE simulation platform (as of version 3.0). It is shown how the necessary optical input parameters can be determined with sufficient accuracy. The results show that the optical physics models of GATE/GEANT4 enable accurate prediction of the spatial and energy resolution of monolithic scintillator PET detectors.
authors.affiliation: Delft University of Technology, Mekelweg 15, 2612 JB Delft, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: D J Jan
authors.initials: DJJ
authors.lastname: van der Laan
authors.affiliation: Delft University of Technology, Mekelweg 15, 2612 JB Delft, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Dennis R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Schaart
authors.affiliation: Delft University of Technology, Mekelweg 15, 2612 JB Delft, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Marnix C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Maas
authors.affiliation: Delft University of Technology, Mekelweg 15, 2612 JB Delft, The Netherlands.|University Medical Centre Utrecht, Rudolf Magnus Institute of Neurosciences and Image Sciences Institute, Heidelberglaan 100, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Freek J
authors.initials: FJ
authors.lastname: Beekman
authors.affiliation: Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bruyndonckx
authors.affiliation: Delft University of Technology, Mekelweg 15, 2612 JB Delft, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Carel W E
authors.initials: CWE
authors.lastname: van Eijk
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D055095:Optics and Photonics; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D012588:Scintillation Counting / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012825:Silicon / Q000737:chemistry; D041622:Tomography, Optical / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods
chemical_list: D012825:Silicon