The ClearPET project

The Crystal Clear Collaboration has designed and is building a high-resolution small animal PET scanner. The design is based on the use of the Hamamatsu R7600-M64 multi-anode photomultiplier tube and a LSO/LuYAP phoswich matrix with one to one coupling between the crystals and the photo-detector. The complete system will have 80 PM tubes in four rings with an inner diameter of 137 mm and an axial field of view of 110 mm. The PM pulses are digitized by free-running ADCs and digital data processing determines the gamma energy, the phoswich layer and even the pulse arrival time. Single gamma interactions are recorded and coincidences are found by software. The gantry allows rotation of the detector modules around the field of view. Simulations, and measurements a 2×4 module test set-up predict a spatial resolution of 1.5 mm in the centre of the field of view and a sensitivity of 5.9% for a point source in the centre of the field of view.