Performance evaluation of a second generation small animal PET

We have completed construction of a second-generation, single-plane small-animal PET instrument based on LSO detectors. The second-generation design addresses some of the limitations in the first-generation. The purpose of the work reported here was to characterize the physical performance of this instrument. Physical measurements presented include measurements of spatial resolution, sensitivity, linearity, scatter fraction and count-rate performance as well as the imaging of extended objects.