Speaker
Description
In recent years, several research groups have demonstrated the potential of time-of-flight positron emission tomography (TOF-PET) by achieving coincidence time resolutions (CTR) below 100 ps in the laboratory. These results, however, rely on small scintillator crystals -favoring timing performance at the expense of detection efficiency- and/or bulky, high-power readout electronics. A realistic system-level demonstration requires, at least, $\sim$20 mm thick scintillator crystals and dedicated readout electronics capable of preserving the intrinsic timing performance of the detectors while maintaining low power consumption and high channel density.
We have developed FastIC+, a custom application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designed for fast-timing applications and optimized for the readout of high-gain photodetectors such as silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs). FastIC+ integrates a low-noise analog front-end with an on-chip Time-to-Digital Converter (TDC) with 25 ps binning. The power consumption is ~12 mW per channel.
The performance of FastIC+ was evaluated in a TOF-PET laboratory experiment using SiPMs coupled to scintillation crystals of different sizes and materials. With small LGSO crystals we achieved, for the first time, a CTR below 100 ps using full-ASIC readout, including on-chip digitization. To approach system-level conditions, we further evaluated the ASIC with dual-ended readout TOF-PET detectors equipped with 20 mm thick LYSO crystals. Despite a non-optimized setup, a CTR of 120 ps was achieved, opening a clear path toward sub-100 ps performance in realistic scanner configurations. In addition, to enable scalable system integration, we are developing dedicated 64- and 256-channel electronic modules for TOF-PET scanners.
| Track | FTMI |
|---|---|
| Presentation type | Oral |