A YAP CAMERA 40X40 MM(2) WITH FAST READOUT ELECTRONICS

Previous papers have already demonstrated the suitability, for single- photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) tracers biodistribution st udies on small animals, of a miniature gamma camera composed by a YAP: Ce scintillating array 4 x 4 x 1 cm(3) coupled to a 3-in Hamamatsu cro ssed-wire anode position sensitive photomultiplier (PSPMT). Some modif ications have been applied to the imaging system readout in order to a dapt its utilization for specific purposes (i,e., SPECT radiopharmaceu tical testing) and to reduce construction costs so that a larger scale production may be feasible. In particular, the system introduced here is based on a resistive chain readout and an integrated acquisition e lectronics. The intrinsic performance of this new version has been ana lyzed and compared to the previous system, which had a single-wire rea dout, Results showed that the basic characteristics of the imaging sys tem remain substantially unchanged in this simplified version, while a faster count rate is achieved. A test on a biological sample performe d with the YAP camera both in single-mire and in resistive chain reado ut modality is also presented, which shows the system high performance in comparison to the Anger camera.