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.
Department of Radiology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford (MIPS), Stanford, CA 94305, USA. Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
M F
MF
Bieniosek
P D
PD
Olcott
C S
CS
Levin
D055615:Electrical Equipment and Supplies; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000295:instrumentation*; D064847:Multimodal Imaging / Q000295:instrumentation*; D055100:Optical Fibers; D055620:Optical Phenomena; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography / Q000295:instrumentation*; D013997:Time Factors