PETALO read-out: A novel approach for data acquisition systems in PET applications

NOWADAYS most of the detectors used in positron emission tomography (PET) applications are based on pixelated detectors. Usually a high number of individual scintillator crystals are either coupled individually to a light sensor or sharing a fewer number of them. In both cases the spatial resolution is limited by the pixel size. The high degree of segmentation in those detectors strongly simplifies the task of locating gamma ray interaction although on the other hand small pixel size degrades energy resolution and time performance. Moreover the scalability of pixel based architecture requires a high cost in terms of material and manufacturing. Other solutions have been proposed in the past [1] based on bigger scintillation crystals where the light distribution sensed by an array of photodetectors was analyzed in order to obtain the gamma event characteristics. However the size and shape of the scintillator crystal cannot be fully customized and large area detectors (body PET scanners) are still difficult to build.