On light sharing TOF-PET modules with depth of interaction and 157 ps FWHM coincidence time resolution

Abstract The performance of a light sharing and recirculation mechanism that allows the extraction of depth of interaction (DOI) are investigated in this paper, with a particular focus on timing. In parallel, a method to optimize the coincidence time resolution (CTR) of PET detectors by use of the DOI information is proposed and tested. For these purposes, a dedicated 64-channels readout setup has been developed with intrinsic timing resolution of 16 ps FWHM. Several PET modules have been produced, based on LYSO:Ce scintillators and commercial silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) arrays, with mm2 individual SiPM size. The results show the possibility to achieve a timing resolution of 157 ps FWHM, combined with the already demonstrated spatial resolution of 1.5 mm FWHM, DOI resolution of 3 mm FWHM, and energy resolution of 9% FWHM at 511 keV, with 15 mm long crystals of section mm2 and mm2. At the same time, the extraction of the DOI coordinate has been demonstrated not to deteriorate the timing performance of the PET module.