Development of a position decoder circuit for PET consisting of GAPD arrays

Use of channel reduction techniques that reduce the number of signals transmitted to a data acquisition (DAQ) module can lead to more efficient use of the DAQ module for PET with numerous readout channels. The purpose of this study was to develop a position decoder circuit (PDC) with a capacity to output the digital address and analog pulse of one interacted channel from numerous PET outputs. A PDC capable of reducing the number of readout channels by a factor of 32 was designed and fabricated. PET detector modules consisting of an LYSO scintillator, a 4x4 array Geiger-mode avalanche photodiode (GAPD), and a 16-channel preamplifier were also constructed to evaluate the performance of the PDC developed for this study. The output signal from the PET detector module was transmitted to the DAQ module after a 45 ns delay by the PDC. Using the gain correction circuit implemented in the PDC, gain uniformity for all channels of the PET detector module was improved by 80%. Energy resolution in the PET detector was 20.4% with the PDC and 20.8% without the PDC. Timing resolution was 2.2 ns with the PDC and 1.5 ns without the PDC. A hot-rod phantom image was successfully acquired using proof-of-principle PET with the PDC developed for this study. Experimental results indicate that the PDC developed for this study is not only useful for the reduction of the readout channel number from the PET detector module consisting of GAPD arrays, but also for PET signal processing and PET imaging.