A high sensitivity, electronically collimated gamma camera

A high sensitivity electronically collimated gamma camera is under development at NOVA. The proposed detector has electronic collimation and will measure the direction of the incident /spl gamma/-ray directly, hence eliminating the need for a physical collimator. This is accomplished by using the Compton scatter imaging technique. A feasibility study was successfully completed and prototype fabrication started. The new detector is expected to have 3 to 10 times improvement over the present gamma cameras. The high sensitivity is expected to allow fast imaging on time scales of 1 to 2 min and may open the way for dynamic metabolism visualization and multi gated acquisition (MUGA) studies. The prototype is designed to have a high spatial resolution which is 2 to 3 times better compared to present gamma cameras. It is expected to have improved energy resolution by a factor of 2 to 4. Good energy resolution will enable discrimination against natural and scattered /spl gamma/-ray background with higher effectiveness than presently available. This will improve the signal-to-noise ratio and improve image quality. The detector can be designed as a single gamma camera or formed into a cylindrical detector and used as a tomographic SPECT imager.