TY - JOUR A1 - Streun, M. A1 - Brandenburg, G. A1 - Khodaverdi, M. A1 - Larue, H. A1 - Parl, C. A1 - Ziemons, Karl T1 - Timemark correction for the ClearPET™ scanners JF - 2005 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record, Vol. 4 N2 - The small animal PET scanners developed by the Crystal Clear Collaboration (ClearPETtrade) detect coincidences by analyzing timemarks which are attached to each event. The scanners are able to save complete single list mode data which allows analysis and modification of the timemarks after data acquisition. The timemarks are obtained from the digitally sampled detector pulses by calculating the baseline crossing of the rising edge of the pulse which is approximated as a straight line. But the limited sampling frequency causes a systematic error in the determination of the timemark. This error depends on the phase of the sampling clock at the time of the event. A statistical method that corrects these errors will be presented Y1 - 2006 SN - 1082-3654 SP - 2057 EP - 2060 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Streun, M. A1 - Brandenburg, G. A1 - Larue, H. A1 - Parl, C. A1 - Ziemons, Karl T1 - The data acquisition system of ClearPET neuro - a small animal PET scanner JF - IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science N2 - The Crystal Clear Collaboration has developed a modular system for a small animal PET scanner (ClearPET). The modularity allows the assembly of scanners of different sizes and characteristics in order to satisfy the specific needs of the individual member institutions. The system performs depth of interaction detection by using a phoswich arrangement combining LSO and LuYAP scintillators which are coupled to Multichannel Photomultipliers (PMTs). For each PMT a free running 40 MHz ADC digitizes the signal and the complete scintillation pulse is sampled by an FPGA and sent with 20 MB/s to a PC for preprocessing. The pulse provides information about the gamma energy and the scintillator material which identifies the interaction layer. Furthermore, the exact pulse starting time is obtained from the sampled data. This is important as no hardware coincidence detection is implemented. All single events are recorded and coincidences are identified by software. The system in Jülich (ClearPET Neuro) is equipped with 10240 crystals on 80 PMTs. The paper will present an overview of the data acquisition system. Y1 - 2006 SN - 0018-9499 VL - 53 IS - 3 SP - 700 EP - 703 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Streun, M. A1 - Brandenburg, G. A1 - Brökel, M. A1 - Fuss, L. A1 - Larue, H. A1 - Parl, C. A1 - Zimmermann, E. A1 - Ziemons, Karl A1 - Halling, H. T1 - The ClearPET data acquisition JF - 2003 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record, Vol. 5 N2 - Within the Crystal Clear Collaboration a modular system for a small animal PET scanner (ClearPET™) has been developed. The modularity allows the assembly of scanners of different sizes and characteristics in order to fit the specific needs of the individual member institutions. Now a first demonstrator is being completed in Julich. The system performs depth of interaction detection by using a phoswich arrangement combining LSO and LuYAP scintillators which are coupled to multi-channel photomultipliers (PMTs). A free-running ADC digitizes the signal from the PMT and the complete scintillation pulses are sampled by an FPGA and sent with 20 MB/S to a PC for preprocessing. The pulse provides information about the gamma energy and the scintillator material which identifies the interaction layer. Furthermore, the exact pulse starting time is obtained from the sampled data. This is important as no hardware coincidence detection is implemented. All single events are recorded and coincidences are identified by software. An advantage of that is that the coincidence window and the dimensions of the field of view can be adjusted easily. The ClearPET™ demonstrator is equipped with 10240 crystals on 80 PMTs. This paper presents an overview of the data acquisition system. Y1 - 2004 SN - 1082-3654 SP - 3097 EP - 3100 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Streun, M. A1 - Brandenburg, G. A1 - Larue, H. A1 - Saleh, H. A1 - Zimmermann, E. A1 - Ziemons, Karl A1 - Halling, H. T1 - Pulse shape discrimination of LSO and LuYAP scintillators for depth of interaction detection in PET JF - 2002 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record, Vol. 3 N2 - A feasible way to gain the depth of interaction information in a PET scanner is the use of phoswich detectors. In general the layer of interaction is identified front the pulse shape of the corresponding scintillator material. In this work pulses from LSO and LuYAP crystals were investigated in order to find a practical method of distinguishing. It turned out that such a pulse processing could he kept simple due to an additional slow component in the light decay of the LuYAP pulse. At the same time the short decay time guarantees that the major amount of the light output is still collected within a short pulse recording time. Y1 - 2003 SN - 1082-3654 SP - 1636 EP - 1639 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Streun, M. A1 - Brandenburg, G. A1 - Larue, H. A1 - Saleh, H. A1 - Zimmermann, E. A1 - Ziemons, Karl A1 - Halling, H. T1 - Pulse shape discrimination of LSO and LuYAP scintillators for depth of interaction detection in PET JF - IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science N2 - A feasible way to gain the depth of interaction information in a positron emission tomography scanner is the use of phoswich detectors. In general, the layer of interaction is identified from the pulse shape of the corresponding scintillator material. In this work, pulses from LSO and LuYAP crystals were investigated in order to find a practical method of distinguishing. It turned out that such a pulse processing could be kept simple because of an additional slow component in the light decay of the LuYAP pulse. At the same time, the short decay time guarantees that the major amount of the light output is still collected within a short pulse recording time. Y1 - 2003 SN - 0018-9499 VL - 50 IS - 3 SP - 344 EP - 347 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Streun, M. A1 - Brandenburg, G. A1 - Larue, H. A1 - Zimmermann, E. A1 - Ziemons, Karl A1 - Halling, H. T1 - Pulse recording by free-running sampling JF - 2000 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record, Vol. 2 N2 - Pulses from a position-sensitive photomultiplier (PS-PMT) are recorded by free running ADCs at a sampling rate of 40 MHz. A four-channel acquisition-board has been developed which is equipped with four 12 bit-ADCs connected to one FPGA (field programmable gate array). The FPGA manages data acquisition and the transfer to the host computer. It can also work as a digital trigger, so a separate hardware-trigger can be omitted. The method of free running sampling provides a maximum of information, besides the pulse charge and amplitude also pulse shape and starting time are contained in the sampled data. These informations are crucial for many tasks such as distinguishing between different scintillator materials, determination of radiation type, pile-up recovery, coincidence detection or time-of-flight applications. The absence of an analog integrator allows coping with very high count rates. Since this method is going to be employed in positron emission tomography (PET), the position of an event is another important information. The simultaneous readout of four channels allows localization by means of center-of-gravity weighting. First results from a test setup with LSO-scintillators coupled to the PS-PMT are presented Y1 - 2000 SN - 1082-3654 SP - 9/179 EP - 9/181 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Streun, M. A1 - Brandenburg, G. A1 - Larue, H. A1 - Zimmermann, E. A1 - Ziemons, Karl A1 - Halling, H. T1 - Pulse recording by free-running sampling JF - IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science N2 - Pulses from a position-sensitive photomultiplier (PS-PMT) are recorded by free-running ADCs at a sampling rate of 40 MHz. A four-channel acquisition board has been developed which is equipped with four 12-bit ADCs connected to one field programmable gate array (FPGA). The FPGA manages data acquisition and the transfer to the host computer. It can also work as a digital trigger, so a separate hardware trigger can be omitted. The method of free-running sampling provides a maximum of information, besides the pulse charge and amplitude also pulse shape and starting time are contained in the sampled data. This information is crucial for many tasks such as distinguishing between different scintillator materials, determination of radiation type, pile-up recovery, coincidence detection or time-of-flight applications. The absence of an analog integrator allows very high count rates to be dealt with. Since this method is to be employed in positron emission tomography (PET), the position of an event is also important. The simultaneous readout of four channels allows localization by means of center-of-gravity weighting. First results from a test setup with LSO scintillators coupled to the PS-PMT are presented here Y1 - 2001 SN - 0018-9499 VL - 48 IS - 3 SP - 524 EP - 526 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Streun, M. A1 - Beer, S. A1 - Hombach, T. A1 - Jahnke, S. A1 - Khodaverdi, M. A1 - Larue, H. A1 - Minwuyelet, S. A1 - Parl, C. A1 - Roeb, G. A1 - Schurr, U. A1 - Ziemons, Karl T1 - PlanTIS: A positron emission tomograph for imaging 11C transport in plants JF - 2007 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record, Vol. 6 N2 - Plant growth and transport processes are highly dynamic. They are characterized by plant-internal control processes and by strong interactions with the spatially and temporally varying environment. Analysis of structure- function relations of growth and transport in plants will strongly benefit from the development of non-invasive techniques. PlanTIS (Plant Tomographic Imaging System) is designed for non-destructive 3D-imaging of positron emitting radiotracers. It will permit functional analysis of the dynamics of carbon distribution in plants including bulky organs. It will be applicable for screening transport properties of plants to evaluate e.g. temperature adaptation of genetically modified plants. PlanTIS is a PET scanner dedicated to monitor the dynamics of the 11C distribution within a plant while or after assimilation of 11CO2. Front end electronics and data acquisition architecture of the scanner are based on the ClearPETTM system [1]. Four detector modules form one of two opposing detector blocks. Optionally, a hardware coincidence detection between the blocks can be applied. In general the scan duration is rather long (~ 1 hour) compared to the decay time of 11C (20 min). As a result the count rates can vary over a wide range and accurate dead time correction is necessary. Y1 - 2008 SN - 1082-3654 SP - 4110 EP - 4112 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Christ, D. A1 - Hollendung, A. A1 - Larue, H. A1 - Parl, C. A1 - Streun, M. A1 - Weber, S. A1 - Ziemons, Karl A1 - Halling, H. T1 - Homogenization of the MultiChannel PM gain by inserting light attenuating masks JF - 2003 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record, Vol. 4 N2 - MultiChannel Photomultipliers (PM), like the R7600-00-M64 or R5900-00-M64 from Hamamatsu, are often chosen as photodetectors in high-resolution positron emission tomography (PET). A major problem of this PM is the nonuniform channel gain. In order to solve this problem, light attenuating masks were created. The aim of the masks is a homogenization of the output of all 64 channels using different hole sizes at the channel positions. The hole area, which is individually defined for the different channels, is inversely proportional to the channel gain. The measurements by inserting light attenuating masks improved a homogenization to a ratio of 1:1.2. Y1 - 2004 SN - 1082-3654 SP - 2382 EP - 2385 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Streun, M. A1 - Christ, D. A1 - Hellendung, A. A1 - Larue, H. A1 - Ziemons, Karl A1 - Halling, H. T1 - Effects of crosstalk and gain nonuniformity using multichannel PMTs in the Clearpet® scanner JF - Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment N2 - The ClearPET® scanners developed by the Crystal Clear Collaboration use multichannel PMTs as photodetectors with scintillator pixels coupled individually to each channel. In order to localize an event each channel anode is connected to a comparator that triggers when the anode signal exceeds a common predefined threshold. Two major difficulties here are crosstalk of light and the gain nonuniformity of the PMT channels. Crosstalk can generate false triggering in channels adjacent to the actual event. On the one hand this can be suppressed by sufficiently increasing the threshold, but on the other hand a threshold too high can already prevent valid events on the lower gain channels from being detected. Finally, both effects restrict the dynamic range of pulse heights that can be processed. The requirements to the dynamic range are not low as the ClearPET® scanners detect the depth of interaction by phoswich pixels consisting of LSO and Lu0.7Y0.3AP, two scintillators with different light yields. We will present a model to estimate the achievable dynamic range and show solutions to increase it. Y1 - 2005 SN - 0168-9002 N1 - Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Inorganic Scintillators and their Use in Scientific and Industrial Applications VL - 537 IS - 1-2 SP - 402 EP - 405 ER -