Imaging performance comparison between a LaBr3:Ce scintillator based and a CdTe semiconductor based photon counting compact gamma camera

The authors report on the performance of two small field of view, compact gamma cameras working in single photon counting in planar imaging tests at 122 and 140 keV. The first camera is based on a LaBr3:Ce scintillator continuous crystal (49x49x5 mm(3)) assembled with a flat panel multianode photomultiplier tube with parallel readout. The second one belongs to the class of semiconductor hybrid pixel detectors, specifically, a CdTe pixel detector (14x14x1 mm(3)) with 256x256 square pixels and a pitch of 55 mu m, read out by a CMOS single photon counting integrated circuit of the Medipix2 series. The scintillation camera was operated with selectable energy window while the CdTe camera was operated with a single low-energy detection threshold of about 20 keV, i.e., without energy discrimination. The detectors were coupled to pinhole or parallel-hole high-resolution collimators. The evaluation of their overall performance in basic imaging tasks is presented through measurements of their detection efficiency, intrinsic spatial resolution, noise, image SNR, and contrast recovery. The scintillation and CdTe cameras showed, respectively, detection efficiencies at 122 keV of 83% and 45%, intrinsic spatial resolutions of 0.9 mm and 75 mu m, and total background noises of 40.5 and 1.6 cps. Imaging tests with high-resolution parallel-hole and pinhole collimators are also reported.