Development and initial performance measurements of Trans-PET BioCaliburn SH1.0

We are developing the Trans-PET BioCaliburn, an all-digital positron emission tomography (PET) scanner designed for state-of-the-art molecular imaging of animals at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST). The basic detector module (BDM) receives annihilation photons, generates scintillation pulses, which are digitized by use of the multivoltage threshold (MVT) sampling method previously developed and reported by us, and sends single events´ time, energy, and position to a personal computer. In the personal computer, post acquisition energy calibration, crystal identification, and coincidence detection are performed. It can arrange the BDMs into various scanner geometries for different imaging needs. In this work, we describe the design and implementation of a hexagonal ring PET scanner with six BDMs, for small animal imaging studies. The scanner, Trans-PET BioCaliburn SH1.0 has a transaxial field-of-view (FOV) of 9.2 cm diameter and axial FOV of 5.3 cm. The typical energy resolution is 14.2% fullwidth-at-half-maximum (FWHM) at 511 keY, and the coincidence timing resolution is 1.4 ns FWHM. Phantom images show that our small animal PET scanner can resolve 1.2 mm diameter rods that are separated by 2.0 mm. We also demonstrate the imaging capabilities of the scanner with in vivo images of mice.