Monolithic LaBr3:Ce crystals on silicon photomultiplier arrays for time-of-flight positron emission tomography

Positron emission tomography detectors based on monolithic scintillation crystals exhibit good spatial and energy resolution, intrinsically provide depth-of-interaction information, have high gamma-photon capture efficiency, and may reduce the manufacturing costs compared to pixelated crystal arrays. Here, we present the characterization of a detector consisting of a 18.0 mm x 16.2 mm x 10.0 mm monolithic LaBr3:5%Ce scintillator directly coupled to a 4 x 4 array of silicon photomultipliers. An energy resolution of 6.4% full-width-at-half-maximum (FWHM) was obtained. The point-spread-function (PSF) was determined for different regions of the detector. The full-width-at-half-maximum (FWHM) of the PSF was measured to be <1.5 mm at the center of the detector and <1.7 mm averaged over the entire crystal. Both values are not corrected for the similar to 0.6 mm FWHM test beam diameter. Furthermore, the influence of edge effects was investigated. We found that near the edges of the detector the spatial resolution degrades to 2.2 mm (FWHM), and a bias in the position estimates, up to 1.5 mm, was observed. Moreover, the coincidence resolving time for two identical detectors in coincidence was measured to be as small as similar to 198 ps FWHM.