Gamma Camera - Signal Processing

Signal Processing

Hal Anger developed the first gamma camera in 1957. His original design, frequently called the Anger camera, is still widely used today. The Anger camera uses sets of vacuum tube photomultipliers (PMT). Generally each tube has an exposed face of about 7.6 cm in diameter and the tubes are arranged in hexagon configurations, behind the absorbing crystal. The electronic circuit connecting the photodetectors is wired so as to reflect the relative coincidence of light fluorescence as sensed by the members of the hexagon detector array. All the PMTs simultaneously detect the (presumed) same flash of light to varying degrees, depending on their position from the actual individual event. Thus the spatial location of each single flash of fluorescence is reflected as a pattern of voltages within the interconnecting circuit array.

The location of the interaction between the gamma ray and the crystal can be determined by processing the voltage signals from the photomultipliers; in simple terms, the location can be found by weighting the position of each photomultiplier tube by the strength of its signal, and then calculating a mean position from the weighted positions. The total sum of the voltages from each photomultiplier is proportional to the energy of the gamma ray interaction, thus allowing discrimination between different isotopes or between scattered and direct photons.