A Gaseous Compton Camera using a 2D-sensitive gaseous photomultiplier for Nuclear Medical Imaging

A new Compton Camera (CC) concept based on a High Pressure Scintillation Chamber coupled to a position-sensitive Gaseous PhotoMultiplier for Nuclear Medical Imaging applications is proposed. The main goal of this work is to describe the development of a ϕ 25 × 12 cm 3 cylindrical prototype, which will be suitable for scintimammography and for small-animal imaging applications. The possibility to scale it to an useful human size device is also in study. The idea is to develop a device capable to compete with the standard Anger Camera. Despite the large success of the Anger Camera, it still presents some limitations, such as: low position resolution and fair energy resolutions for 140 keV. The CC arises a different solution as it provides information about the incoming photon direction, avoiding the use of a collimator, which is responsible for a huge reduction (10−4) of the sensitivity. The main problem of the CCʹs is related with the Doppler Broadening which is responsible for the loss of angular resolution. In this work, calculations for the Doppler Broadening in Xe, Ar, Ne and their mixtures are presented. Simulations of the detector performance together with discussion about the gas choice are also included .