• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.9
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• pp.3380-3389
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• 2022

We evaluated the performance of an improved hybrid median filter (IHMF) applied to X-ray computed tomography (CT) images obtained using a high-resolution photon-counting cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) detector. To study how the proposed approach improves the image quality, we measured the noise levels and the overall CT-image quality. We established a CZT imaging system with a detector length of 5.12 cm and thickness of 0.3 cm and acquired phantom images. To evaluate the efficacy of the proposed filter, we first modeled two conventional median filters. Subsequently, we were able to achieve a normalized noise power spectrum result of ~10^-8 mm², and furthermore, the proposed method improved the contrast-to-noise ratio by a factor of ~1.51 and the coefficient of variation by 1.55 relative to the counterpart values of the no-filter image. In addition, the IHMF exhibited the best performance among the three filters considered as regards the peak signal-to-noise ratio and no-reference-based image-quality evaluation parameters. Thus, our results demonstrate that the IHMF approach provides a superior image performance over conventional median filtering methods when applied to actual CZT X-ray CT images.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.35-44
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• 2020

Background: Cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) is a promising material because of a high detection efficiency, good energy resolution, and operability at room temperature. However, the cost of CZT dramatically increases as its size increases. In this study, to achieve a large effective volume with relatively low cost, an array structure comprised of individual virtual Frisch-grid CZT detectors was proposed. Materials and Methods: The prototype consisted of 2 × 2 CZTs, a holder, anode and cathode printed circuit boards (PCBs), and an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). CZTs were used and the non-contacting shielding electrode method was applied for virtual Frisch-grid effect. An ASIC was used, and the holder and the PCBs were fabricated. In the current system, because the CZTs formed a common cathode, a total of 5 channels were assigned for data processing. Results and Discussion: An experiment using ¹³⁷Cs at room temperature was conducted for 10 minutes. Energy and timing information was acquired and the depth of interaction was calculated by the timing difference between the signals of both electrodes. Based on obtained three-dimensional position information, the energy correction was carried out, and as a result the energy spectra showed the improvements. In addition, a Compton image was reconstructed using the iterative method. Conclusion: The virtual Frisch-grid CZT detector based on the array structure was developed and the energy spectra and the Compton image were successfully acquired.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.81-86
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• 2016

Background: For positron emission tomography (PET) application, cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) has been investigated by several institutes to replace detectors from a conventional system using photomultipliers or Silicon-photomultipliers (SiPMs). The spatial and energy resolution in using CZT can be superior to current scintillator-based state-of-the-art PET detectors. CZT has been under development for several years at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) to provide a high performance gamma ray detection, which needs a single crystallinity, a good uniformity, a high stopping power, and a wide band gap. Materials and Methods: Before applying our own grown CZT detectors in the prototype PET system, we investigated preliminary research with a developed discrete type data acquisition (DAQ) system for coincident events at 128 anode pixels and two common cathodes of two CZT detectors from Redlen. Each detector has a $19.4{\times}19.4{\times}6mm^3$ volume size with a 2.2 mm anode pixel pitch. Discrete amplifiers consist of a preamplifier with a gain of $8mV{\cdot}fC^{-1}$ and noise of 55 equivalent noise charge (ENC), a $CR-RC^4$ shaping amplifier with a $5{\mu}s$ peak time, and an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) driver. The DAQ system has 65 mega-sample per second flash ADC, a self and external trigger, and a USB 3.0 interface. Results and Discussion: Characteristics such as the current-to-voltage curve, energy resolution, and electron mobility life-time products for CZT detectors are investigated. In addition, preliminary results of gamma ray imaging using 511 keV of a $^{22}Na$ gamma ray source were obtained. Conclusion: In this study, the DAQ system with a CZT radiation sensor was successfully developed and a PET image was acquired by two sets of the developed DAQ system.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.43 no.6
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• pp.567-572
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• 2011

A sensitivity analysis of the methods used to evaluate the transport properties of a CdZnTe detector was performed using two different radiations (${\alpha}$ particle and gamma-ray) emitted from an $^{241}Am$ source. The mobility-lifetime products of the electron-hole pair in a planar CZT detector ($5{\times}5{\times}2\;mm^3$) were determined by fitting the peak position as a function of biased voltage data to the Hecht equation. To verify the accuracy of these products derived from ${\alpha}$ particles and low-energy gamma-rays, an energy spectrum considering the transport property of the CZT detector was simulated through a combination of the deposited energy and the charge collection efficiency at a specific position. It was found that the shaping time of the amplifier module significantly affects the determination of the (${\mu}{\tau}$) products; the ${\alpha}$ particle method was stabilized with an increase in the shaping time and was less sensitive to this change compared to when the gamma-ray method was used. In the case of the simulated energy spectrum with transport properties evaluated by the ${\alpha}$ particle method, the peak position and tail were slightly different from the measured result, whereas the energy spectrum derived from the low-energy gamma-ray was in good agreement with the experimental results. From these results, it was confirmed that low-energy gamma-rays are more useful when seeking to obtain the transport properties of carriers than ${\alpha}$ particles because the methods that use gamma-rays are less influenced by the surface condition of the CZT detector. Furthermore, the analysis system employed in this study, which was configured by a combination of Monte Carlo simulation and the Hecht model, is expected to be highly applicable to the study of the characteristics of CZT detectors.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.1417-1427
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• 2019

In this study, we evaluated the performance of a commercial pixelated cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) detector for spectroscopy and identified its feasibility as a Compton camera for radiation monitoring in a nuclear power plant. The detection system consisted of a $20mm{\times}20mm{\times}5mm$ CZT crystal with $8{\times}8$ pixelated anodes and a common cathode, in addition to an application specific integrated circuit. The performance of the various radioisotopes $^{57}Co$, $^{133}Ba$, $^{22}Na$, and $^{137}Cs$ was evaluated. In general, the amplitude of the induced signal in a CZT crystal depends on the interaction position and material non-uniformity. To minimize this dependency, a drift time correction was applied. The depth of each interaction was calculated by the drift time and the positional dependency of the signal amplitude was corrected based on the depth information. After the correction, the Compton regions of each spectrum were reduced, and energy resolutions of 122 keV, 356 keV, 511 keV, and 662 keV peaks were improved from 13.59%, 9.56%, 6.08%, and 5%-4.61%, 2.94%, 2.08%, and 2.2%, respectively. For the Compton imaging, simulations and experiments using one $^{137}Cs$ source with various angular positions and two $^{137}Cs$ sources were performed. Individual and multiple sources of $^{133}Ba$, $^{22}Na$, and $^{137}Cs$ were also measured. The images were successfully reconstructed by weighted list-mode maximum likelihood expectation maximization method. The angular resolutions and intrinsic efficiency of the $^{137}Cs$ experiments were approximately $7^{\circ}-9^{\circ}$ and $5{\times}10^{-4}-7{\times}10^{-4}$, respectively. The distortions of the source distribution were proportional to the offset angle.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.459-464
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• 2021

The detector performance is important role in acquiring the gamma rays from patients. Among parameters of detector performances, there is density, which relates to respond to gamma rays. Therefore, we confirm the detection efficiency according to various detector materials based on the density parameter using GATE (geant4 application for emission tomography) simulation tool. The NaI (density: 3.67 g/cm³), CZT (Cadimium Zinc Telluride) (density: 5.80 g/cm³), CdTe (Cadmium Telluride) (5.85 g/cm³), and GAGG (Gadoinium Aluminum Gallium Garnet) (density g/cm³) were used as detector materials. In addition, the point source and quadrant bar phantom, which is modeled for 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 mm thicknesses, were modeled to confirm the quatitative analysis using sensitivity (cps/MBq) and the full width at half maximum (FWHM, mm) at the 2.0 mm bar thickness containing visual evaluation. Based on the results, the sensitivity for NaI, CZT, CdTe, and GAGG detector materials were 0.12, 0.15, 0.16, and 0.18 cps/MBq. In addition, the FWHM for quadrant bar phantom in the 2.0 mm bar thickness is 3.72, 3.69, 3.70, and 3.73 mm for NaI, CZT, CdTe, and GAGG materials, respectively. Compared with performance of detector materials according to density, the high density can improve detection efficiency in terms of sensitivity and mean count. Among these detector materials, the GAGG material is efficient for detection of gamma rays.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.12
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• pp.4693-4697
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• 2022

Parylene coating was adopted on CdZnTe (CZT) detector as a mechanical protection layer after wet passivation with hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) and ammonium fluoride (NH₄F). Wet chemical passivant lose their effectiveness when exposed to the ambient conditions for a long time. Parylene coating could protect the effectiveness of passivation, by mechanically blocking the exposure to the ambient conditions. Stability of CZT detector was tested with the measurement of leakage current density and response to radio-isotopes. When the enough thickness of parylene (>100 ㎛) is adopted, parylene is a promising protection layer thereby ensuring the performance and long-term stability of CZT detectors.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.129-137
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• 2024

To non-destructively determine the burnup of a spent nuclear fuel assembly, it is essential to analyze the nuclear isotopes present in the assembly and detect the neutrons and gamma rays emitted from these isotopes. Specifically, gamma-ray measurement methods can utilize a single radiation measurement value of ¹³⁷Cs or measure based on the energy peak ratio of Cs isotopes such as ¹³⁴Cs/¹³⁷Cs and ¹⁵⁴Eu/¹³⁷Cs. In this study, we validated the extent to which the results of gamma-ray measurements using cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) sensors based on ¹³⁷Cs could be accurately simulated by implementing identical conditions on MCNP. To simulate measurement scenarios using a lead collimator, we propose equations that represent radiation behavior that reaches the detector by assuming "Direct hit" and "Penetration with attenuation" situations. The results obtained from MCNP confirmed an increase in measurement efficiency by 0.47 times when using the CZT detector, demonstrating the efficacy of the measurement system.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.776-780
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• 2017

To avoid imaging artifacts and interpretation mistakes, an improvement of the uniformity in gamma camera systems is a very important point. We can expect excellent uniformity using cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) photon counting detector (PCD) because of the direct conversion of the gamma rays energy into electrons. In addition, the uniformity performance such as integral uniformity (IU), differential uniformity (DU), scatter fraction (SF), and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) varies according to the energy window setting. In this study, we compared a PCD and conventional scintillation detector with respect to the energy windows (5%, 10%, 15%, and 20%) using a $^{99m}Tc$ gamma source with a Geant4 Application for Tomography Emission simulation tool. The gamma camera systems used in this work are a CZT PCD and NaI(Tl) conventional scintillation detector with a 1-mm thickness. According to the results, although the IU and DU results were improved with the energy window, the SF and CNR results deteriorated with the energy window. In particular, the uniformity for the PCD was higher than that of the conventional scintillation detector in all cases. In conclusion, our results demonstrated that the uniformity of the CZT PCD was higher than that of the conventional scintillation detector.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.439-443
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• 2019

To improve the noise characteristics, software-based noise reduction algorithms are widely used in cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) pixelated semiconductor gamma camera system. The purpose of this study was to develop an improved median filtering algorithm using a thresholding method for noise reduction in a CZT pixelated semiconductor gamma camera system. The gamma camera system simulated is a CZT pixelated semiconductor detector with a pixel-matched parallel-hole collimator and the spatial resolution phatnom was designed with the Geant4 Application for Tomography Emission (GATE). In addition, a noise reduction algorithm with a median filter using an improved thresholding method is developed and we applied our proposed algorithm to an acquired spatial resolution phantom image. According to the results, the proposed median filter improved the noise characteristics compared to a conventional median filter. In particular, the average for normalized noise power spectrum, contrast to noise ratio, and coefficient of variation results using the proposed median filter were 10, 1.11, and 1.19 times better than results using conventional median filter, respectively. In conclusion, our results show that the proposed median filter using improved the thresholding method results in high imaging performance when applied in a CZT semiconductor gamma camera system.