2024/06/19 by S. R. Soleti, Alejandro Castillo, Soleti, S. R. +12 · 1 citation
Medicine · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Instrumentation and Detectors (physics.ins-det) #Medical Imaging Techniques and Applications #Medical Physics (physics.med-ph) #Nuclear Physics and Applications #Radiation Detection and Scintillator Technologies
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2406.13598
openalex publication_date 2024/06/19 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Total Body PET (TBPET) scanners have recently demonstrated the ability to significantly reduce both acquisition time and the administered radioactive dose, thanks to their increased sensitivity. However, their widespread adoption is limited by the high costs associated with the current available systems. Cesium iodide (CsI), though historically less favored for PET due to its lower stopping power and light yield compared to crystals like LYSO, shows remarkable improvement when operated at cryogenic temperatures (∼100 K). Under these conditions, CsI light yield rises dramatically to about 100 photons/keV, providing excellent energy resolution and good coincidence time resolution at a lower cost - typically 3 to 5 times cheaper than other crystals at parity of radiation length. In our study, we measured the light yield, the energy resolution and the coincidence time resolution as a function of temperature for two pure CsI crystals read out by a pair of silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs). An energy resolution of 6.3% FWHM and a coincidence time resolution of 1.84 ns at 511 keV were achieved at a temperature of 104 K. These results point towards the potential of cryogenic CsI as a cost-effective, high-performance material for TBPET scanners.