Row–Column Readout Method to Mitigate Radiographic-Image Blurring From Multipixel Events in a Coded-Aperture Imaging System

In order to improve the image quality of a coded-aperture-based gamma-ray imaging apparatus, a method for removing Compton scattered and other multipixel events is presented that removes inaccurate position estimations from the data stream. In coded-aperture gamma-ray imaging detectors, scattering events that are shared between different partitions in the active medium can result in the inaccurate determination of the initial gamma-ray interaction position, the result of which is distortion in the angular reconstruction mapping. For coded-aperture system in which the rapid localization and identification of the emitting source is important, the distortion due to scattered radiation can increase the integration time of the system. We show, in both software and hardware implementations using a cerium-doped gadolinium aluminum gallium garnet pixelated scintillator array, that filtering the data to remove multipixel events can improve the image quality despite the efficiency loss associated with not utilizing all of the interactions within the detector.