Abstract
Accurate detection of radiation sources across 4π is essential for various applications, such as nuclear homeland security, radiological contamination mapping, and space exploration. Traditional directional radiation detectors often rely on bulky high-Z materials for directional shielding, introducing limitations in size, weight and field of view. These factors make them unsuitable for handheld devices, drone mapping, and space applications. Additionally, their restricted field of view requires either multiple detectors or rotational mechanisms to cover the entire field of view. To address these limitations, we present a novel 4π directional radiation detector based on Compton scattering with a segmented hollow cubic structure. This detector utilizes GAGG(Ce) scintillators coupled with silicon photomultipliers, eliminating the need for predefined separate scatterer and absorber detectors. We used GAMOS to simulate and optimize the cubic detector, to achieve a high absolute detection efficiency of 7% and full 4π detection capability. Our innovative channel reduction method is based on 488 sub-detectors that are read out through only 98 channels, with insignificant reduction in readout performance. The influence of a channel readout performance was measured and incorporated into the simulation. This channel reduction approach significantly reduces cost and power consumption while improving angular resolution for distinguishing closely located sources. We evaluate by simulation the detector's performance in distinguishing and localizing two radiation sources (1 mCi and 2 mCi) spaced 4 m apart from a distance of 10 m, as specified by the new N42.62-2023 standard for radiation imaging. Moreover, by implementing the Levenberg-Marquardt Algorithm for estimating two-dimensional Cauchy-based distributions, we achieve a more accurate localization and relative radioactivity assessment of the sources.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 170246 |
Journal | Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment |
Volume | 1072 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 1 Mar 2025 |
Keywords
- Channel reduction
- Compton scattering
- Directional radiation detector
- GAGG
- Levenberg-Marquardt Algorithm (LMA)
- N42.62-2023- PIRD
- Scintillator
- Silicon photomultiplier (SiPM)
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Nuclear and High Energy Physics
- Instrumentation