High time-resolution MRPC detector for TOF-PET

The traditional TOF-PET (Positron emission tomography) mainly uses the structure of a scintillator detector connected to a photomultiplier tube. The structure has the disadvantages that time resolution is not good enough (about 300 ps FWHM) for improving the signal-to-noise ratio of the acquisition system, which is not conducive to the detection of microtumors in the clinic and reduction in imaging time. The thickness of the scintillator is large (greater than 3 cm). Traditional PET has low geometric efficiency and sensitivity. It requires a long time to complete a full-body scan. However, the MRPC can be made into a 2.4-meter-long whole body PET. The high cost of traditional TOF-PET limits its widespread use in medical and other fields. The excellent time resolution of MRPC makes MRPC TOF-PET a good application prospect. This paper shows the time resolution of two 32-gap MRPCs with 128 & mu;m gap thickness on cosmic rays and 0.511 MeV photons. By using the fast front-end amplifier and waveform acquisition system, the time resolution for cosmic rays is 27 ps and the rms time accuracy per 0.511 MeV photon is 72 ps. The time resolution in terms of FWHM of the time difference between photon pairs is 239 ps FWHM. The reason why MRPC detectors have different time resolutions for cosmic rays and 0.511 MeV photons is related to the different ways different particles act and the thickness of the detector. We propose to use a Cerenkov radiator to convert gamma into ultraviolet photons and use a composite photocathode to detect, improving the detection efficiency to 6.4% for RPC.