Development of TlBr detectors for PET imaging.

Thallium bromide (TlBr) is a promising semiconductor detector material for positron emission tomography (PET) because it can offer very good energy resolution and 3D segmentation capabilities, and it also provides detection efficiency surpassing that of commonly used scintillators. Energy, timing, and spatial resolution were measured for thin (< 1 mm) TlBr detectors. The energy and timing resolution were measured simultaneously for the same planar 0.87 mm-thick TlBr device. An energy resolution of (6.4 +/- 1.3)% at 511 keV was achieved at -400 V bias voltage and at room temperature. A timing resolution of (27.8 +/- 4.1) ns FWHM was achieved for the same operating conditions when appropriate energy gating was applied. The intrinsic spatial resolution was measured to be 0.9 mm FWHM for a TlBr detector with metallic strip contacts of 0.5 mm pitch. As material properties improve, higher bias voltage should improve timing performance. A stack of thin detectors with finely segmented readout can create a modular detector with excellent energy and spatial resolution for PET applications.