Development of modified scintillator-based single-crystal position-sensitive 4π Compton camera for a portable radiation imaging device

After the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, researchers focused on the accident and studied the effects of leaked radiation based on radiation detection and measurement. Many methods can be used for monitoring and mapping natural and leaked radionuclides; however, portable detectors installed in unmanned ground or aerial vehicles (UAVs) can measure radioactivity near the target point, preventing damage to the human body from radiation in highly contaminated areas. Compton cameras have a wider field-of-view (FOV) and less weight than a detector system that uses a mechanical collimator. In a previous study, a position-sensitive 4 pi Compton camera based on a lutetium-yttrium oxyorthosilicate (LYSO) scintillator attached to silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) was developed. Compared with a semiconductor-based Compton camera operating with a power device supplying more than a thousand volts, our system requires a maximum of approximately several tens of volts. In addition, our Compton camera has a single-crystal structure; hence, it has advantages in terms of FOV and efficiency over a Compton camera that utilizes separate detectors. In this study, a modified scintillator-based Compton camera was created using an advanced SiPM model and a gadolinium aluminum gallium garnet (GAGG) scintillator. In the experiment, Ba-133, Na-22, and Cs-137 radionuclides were used for data acquisition, and simple back-projection and list-mode maximum likelihood expectation maximization algorithms were used to reconstruct the Compton images. The 4 pi FOV coverage was evaluated using Compton imaging and angular resolution measure (ARM), and the results indicated that FOV coverage was degraded when the angle between the radiation source and the perpendicular axis of the detector was near 45 degrees. The degradation of the ARM reflected as the bimodal distribution became more severe for the Compton camera based on the LYSO scintillator than that based on the GAGG scintillator, which was attributed to the intrinsic radiation of LYSO from Lu-176 considered as background noise. In the evaluation of intrinsic efficiency, the influence of intrinsic radiation was significantly large. Without background noise rejection, the intrinsic efficiencies for 356, 511, and 662 keV radiation were 0.66%-1.28%, and 1.50%-3.05% for the detection system based on the GAGG and LYSO scintillators, respectively. After background noise rejection, the intrinsic efficiencies were re-calculated as 0.64%-1.27% and 1.39%-1.72% for the detection system based on the GAGG and LYSO scintillator, respectively.

Automated summary

After the Fukushima nuclear accident, researchers focused on studying the effects of leaked radiation. They developed a portable detector system based on a Compton camera, which can measure radioactivity in highly contaminated areas with a wider field-of-view and less weight. Through experiments and evaluations, they found differences in FOV coverage and angular resolution between Compton cameras using different materials.