Optimal Geometrical Configuration of a Double-scattering Compton Camera for Maximum Imaging Resolution and Sensitivity

Abstract

A novel type of Compton camera, called a double-scattering Compton imager (DOCI), is under development for nuclear medicine and molecular imaging applications. Two plane-type position-sensitive semiconductor detectors are employed as the scatterer detectors, and a 3" x 3" cylindrical NaI(Tl) scintillation detector is employed as the absorber detector. This study determined the optimal geometrical configuration of these component detectors to maximize the performance of the Compton camera in imaging resolution and sensitivity. To that end, the Compton camera was simulated very realistically, with the GEANT4 detector simulation toolkit, including various detector characteristics such as energy resolution, spatial resolution, energy discrimination, and Doppler energy broadening. According to our simulation results, the Compton camera is expected to show its maximum performance when the two scatterer detectors are positioned in parallel, with ~8 cm of separation. The Compton camera will show the maximum performance also when the gamma ray energy is about 500 keV, which suggests that the Compton camera is a suitable device to image the distribution of the positron emission tomography (PET) isotopes in the human body.