Imaging performance of the Tachyon Time-of-Flight PET camera

Tachyon, a single-ring “demonstration” Time-of-Flight (TOF) PET scanner has been developed to measure the improvement in image quality as a function of the timing resolution. The design of the detector module is optimized for timing by coupling the 6.1×25 mm² of 6.1×6.1×25 mm³ LSO scintillator crystals onto a 1-inch diameter Hamamatsu R-9800 PMT with super-bialkali photocathode. We characterized the imaging performance of the system. The results show that Tachyon achieved a coincidence timing resolution of 314 ps +/-20 ps fwhm over all crystal-crystal combinations, better than any PET camera that has been reported on. Phantom experiments based on the NEMA NU 2-2007 standard were performed to evaluate the basic imaging performance of the scanner including noise equivalent count rates and image resolution.