Performance Evaluation of the Thick Pinhole Gamma Rays Diagnostic System

The diagnostic methods for the profile of the radiation source were estab-lished at first based on the pinhole imaging principle. In this paper, the relationships among various parameters of the gamma-rays crammer such as the modulation transfer function (MTF), the noise power spectrum (NPS), the signal-noise ratio (SNR) and the detective quantum efficiency (DQE) are developed and studied experimentally on the cobalt radiation source. The image diagnostic system is consisting with rays-fluorescence convertor (YAG crystal), optical imaging system, MCP image intensifier, CCD camera and other devices. The spatial resolution of the modulation transfer function (MTF) at 10% intensity was measured as 1 lp/mm by knife-edge method. The quantum of the measurement system is about 150 under weak radiation condition due to the single particle detection efficiency of the system. The dynamic range was inferred preliminarily as about 437. The required radiation intensity was calculated using the experiment result for the (SNR) = 1, 5, 10, respectively. The theoretical investigation results show that the radiation image with (SNR) = 1 can be only obtained when the pinhole diameter is 0.7 mm, object distance and image distance are both 200 cm, and the radiation intensity is about 1.0 × 1012 Sr-1·cm-2.