Characterization of monolithic GAGG:Ce coupled to both PMT and SiPM array for gamma imaging in nuclear medicine

Abstract: GaGG:Ce scintillation crystal is very useful for nuclear imaging purposes, thanks to its several advantages (high density, short decay time, high light yield and good energy resolution, no self-activity, no hygroscopic). However, only the recent improvements in the growth processes make it available with large size, in order to use it in monolithic configuration. The main drawbacks of pixelated crystals, as non-uniform response, high production costs and optical light loss, could be therefore overcome. In this work the characterization of this promising crystal coupled both to a single channel PMT (spectrometric purpose) and to a new technology SiPM (50% PDE and 74% geometrical fill factor) has been performed. The detection efficiency results good both for SPECT (87% at 122 keV) and for PET (18% at 356 keV) applications. However, the unexpected result arises from the energy resolution: at 356 keV 8.9% and 8.0% for single channel PMT and SiPM configuration, respectively. In other terms, the used SiPM allows to achieve higher energy resolution than single channel PMT. Moreover, a high imaging performance has been observed, with a millimeter intrinsic spatial resolution.