Concept study of a two-plane Compton camera designed for location and nuclide identification of remote radiation sources

The concept of a two-plane planar Compton camera, consisting of scintillation detector elements, is presented. Several materials as C₉H₁₀, CaF₂, YAlO₃, NaI, and LaBr₃ are considered for operation in the scatter and/or absorption plane. The performance of the Compton camera is optimized by means of Monte Carlo simulations to meet the requirements for Homeland Security applications. For a low-threshold detector system we propose to utilize C₉H₁₀ or CaF₂ for the scatter plane and NaI or LaBr₃ for the absorption plane. Particular effort must be focused to achieve low energy thresholds in particular for the detectors of the scatter plane if photons of incident energies below 200 keV are to be detected with reasonable efficiencies.