Characterization of avalanche photodiode arrays for the ClearPEM and ClearPEM-Sonic scanners

The ClearPEM scanner is a high-resolution Positron Emission Mammography prototype, developed by the Portuguese PET Consortium in the framework of the Crystal Clear Collaboration at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). The scanner is based on a novel readout scheme which uses fine-pitch scintillator crystals, avalanche photodiodes, low-noise high-gain integrated electronics and a fast reconfigurable digital data acquisition system. The scanner uses two planar detector heads each composed of 96 detector modules. The detector module is composed of a matrix of 32 identical 2 ? 2 ? 20 mm3 LYSO:Ce scintillator crystals, coupled at both ends to Hamamatsu S8550 APD arrays for Depth-of-Interaction (DOI) measurements. More recently, a new scanner named ClearPEM-Sonic which combines the ClearPEM technology with an Ultrasound apparatus, is being produced. A set of 984 APD arrays used in both scanner assemblies followed a quality control protocol and a characterization procedure. This paper describes the methods used in these measurements and the results obtained with the full APD production batch.