Communications Engineering (Sep 2024)

Scintillation event imaging with a single photon avalanche diode camera

  • Alex Bocchieri,
  • Edoardo Charbon,
  • Andreas Velten

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s44172-024-00281-6
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 3, no. 1
pp. 1 – 16

Abstract

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Abstract Position and time measurements of scintillation events encode information about the radiation source. Single photon avalanche diode (SPAD) arrays offer multiple-megapixel spatial resolution and tens of picoseconds temporal resolution for detecting single photons. Current lensless designs for measuring scintillation events use sensors that are lower in spatial resolution. Camera-based designs use sensors that are lower in temporal resolution or readout rate and cannot image individual interactions. Here we propose to image scintillation events in a thick, monolithic scintillator using a high-resolution SPAD camera. We demonstrate that a commercial SPAD camera is able to gather sufficient signal to image individual scintillation events and observe 3D shifts in their spatial distribution. Simulations show that a SPAD camera can localize individual scintillation events in 3D. We report direct imaging of gamma-ray interactions in a scintillator with a SPAD camera. The proposed design may allow to measure complex signatures of individual particles interacting in the scintillator.