Development of an all-in-one gamma camera/CCD system for safeguard verification

• Published in: Journal of the Korean Physical Society Vol. 65; no. 12; pp. 2013 - 2016
• Main Authors: Kim, Hyun-Il, An, Su Jung, Chung, Yong Hyun, Kwak, Sung-Woo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Seoul The Korean Physical Society 01.12.2014; 한국물리학회
• Subjects: Mathematical and Computational Physics; Particle and Nuclear Physics; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Theoretical; 물리학; Monitoring system; CCD camera; Fused image; Gamma camera
• ISSN: 0374-4884; 1976-8524
• DOI: 10.3938/jkps.65.2013

For the purpose of monitoring and verifying efforts at safeguarding radioactive materials in various fields, a new all-in-one gamma camera/charged coupled device (CCD) system was developed. This combined system consists of a gamma camera, which gathers energy and position information on gamma-ray sources, and a CCD camera, which identifies the specific location in a monitored area. Therefore, 2-D image information and quantitative information regarding gamma-ray sources can be obtained using fused images. A gamma camera consists of a diverging collimator, a 22 × 22 array CsI(Na) pixelated scintillation crystal with a pixel size of 2 × 2 × 6 mm 3 and Hamamatsu H8500 position-sensitive photomultiplier tube (PSPMT). The Basler scA640-70gc CCD camera, which delivers 70 frames per second at video graphics array (VGA) resolution, was employed. Performance testing was performed using a Co-57 point source 30 cm from the detector. The measured spatial resolution and sensitivity were 4.77 mm full width at half maximum (FWHM) and 7.78 cps/MBq, respectively. The energy resolution was 18% at 122 keV. These results demonstrate that the combined system has considerable potential for radiation monitoring.