High resolution, high efficiency liquid scintillator capillary array for gamma imaging

Mei Zhang; Huasi Hu; Kuinian Li; Bodong Peng; Liang Sheng; Dongwei Hei; Yang Li

doi:10.1063/1.5026131

High resolution, high efficiency liquid scintillator capillary array for gamma imaging

Rev Sci Instrum. 2018 Jul;89(7):073506. doi: 10.1063/1.5026131.

Authors

Mei Zhang¹, Huasi Hu¹, Kuinian Li², Bodong Peng², Liang Sheng², Dongwei Hei², Yang Li²

Affiliations

¹ School of Energy and Power Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Intense Pulsed Radiation Simulation and Effect, Northwest Institute of Nuclear Technology, Xi'an 710024, China.

PMID: 30068151
DOI: 10.1063/1.5026131

Abstract

We fabricated a liquid scintillator capillary array (LSCA) for gamma imaging with the aim of developing a one-dimensional detector system utilizing a streak camera for high temporal and spatial resolution pulsed gamma radiation detection. The detector's performance was studied in a simulation and via an experiment. The maximum efficiency of the LSCA's emission was at a wavelength of 420 nm. To establish a high fidelity representation of the detector's edge spread function and modulation transfer function (MTF), a slanted edge algorithm was introduced to calculate the edge spread function of the discrete sampling array's image screen. The simulation results showed that the spatial resolution of the LSCA was better for 14 MeV neutrons than for 1.25 MeV gamma radiation. The experimental results show that in comparison with a 6-mm-thick LaBr₃ image plate, the LSCA had a higher temporal and spatial resolution when used as a gamma detector. The spatial resolution was 1.1 lp/mm (MTF = 0.1) for the LSCA. In addition, when an ultra-violet streak camera was coupled with the LSCA, it had a comparable sensitivity to that of a 6-mm-thick LaBr₃ image plate.