PERFORMANCE STUDIES OF A DEPTH ENCODING MULTICRYSTAL DETECTOR FOR PET

We report the results of design studies for a multicrystal detector wi th the capacity to encode the Depth-Of-Interaction (DOI). These studie s are based on a simulation that treats the interactions of gamma-rays and tracks scintillation photons in state-of-the-art position encodin g PET detectors. The simulation was used to study the impact of a simp le modification to the standard surface treatment of the EXACT HR PLUS block that induces a significant sensitivity of the photopeak pulse h eight upon the DOI of 511 keV gamma-rays. The depth resolution achieve d with the altered block as well as the impact of the modification on its energy and position resolutions are presented. The results show a depth resolution of 6 to 7 mm for the inner crystals of the modified b lock. The center crystals show the largest increase in event position miscoding with 16% less encoding accuracy in the modified block compar ed to the original one.