In emergency situations such as nuclear accidents or terrorism, radioactive and nuclear materials can be released by some environmental reasons such as the atmosphere and underground water. To secure the safety of human beings and to respond appropriately emergency situation, it is required to designate high and low dose rate regions in the early stages by analyzing the location and radioactivity of sources through environmental radiation measurement. This research team has developed a small gamma probe which is featured by its geometrical accessibility and higher radiation sensitivity than other drone detectors. A plastic scintillator and Silicon Photomultiplier (SiPM) were applied to the probe to optimize the wireless measurement condition. SiPM has a higher gain (higher than 106) and lower operating voltage (less than 30 V) compared to a general photodiode. However, the electronic components in the SiPM are sensitively affected by temperature, which causes the performance degradation of the SiPM. As the SiPM temperature increases, the breakdown voltage (VBD) of the SiPM also increases, so the gain must be maintained by applying the appropriate VBD. Therefore, when the SiPM temperature increases while the VBD is fixed, the gain decreases. Thus, the signal does not exceed the threshold voltage (VTH) and the overall count is reduced. In general, the optimal gain is maintained by cooling the SiPM or through a temperature compensation circuit. However, in the developed system, the hardware correction method such as cooling or temperature compensation circuit cannot be applied. In this study, it was confirmed that the count decreased by up to 20% according to the increase in the temperature of the SiPM when the probe was operated at room temperature (26°C). We propose methods to calibrate the total count without cooling device or compensation circuit. After operating the probe at room temperature, the first measured count is set as the reference value, and the correction factor is derived using the tendency of the count to decrease as the temperature increases. In addition, since this probe is used for environmental radiation monitoring, periodic measurements are more suitable than continuous measurements. Therefore, the temperature of the probe can be maintained by adding a power saving interval to the operation sequence of the probe. These two methods use the operation sequence and measurement data, respectively. Thus, it is expected to be the most effective method for the current system where the temperature compensation through hardware is not possible.

실리콘광전증배관(Silicon Photomultiplier, SiPM)과 두 층의 섬광 픽셀 배열을 이용한 반응 깊이 측정 검출기를 설계하였으며, 위치 측정 능력을 DETECT2000을 사용하여 검증하였다. 섬광 픽셀의 면 처리와 반사체 조합을 통해 섬광 픽셀과 감마선이 반응한 위치를 추적하였다. 아래층은 광학적으로 연결된 부분을 제외하고 반사체로 처리하였으며, 위층은 가장 외곽부분을 제외하고 모두 광학적으로 연결되도록 처리하여 빛의 공유가 아래층에 비해 자유롭도록 구성하였다. 거울반사체와 난반사체, 섬광 픽셀의 거친 면과 매끈한 면의 조합을 통해 평면 영상을 획득하였으며, 층별 영상이 생성되는 위치를 측정하여 분석하였다. 앵거 알고 리듬을 사용하여 SiPM의 16채널 신호를 4개의 채널로 감소시켜 영상을 재구성하였다. 섬광 픽셀의 거친 면과 모든 반사체 조합에서 두 층으로 구분되는 것을 확인할 수 있었으며, 매끈한 면일 경우에는 모두 층 구분이 불가능한 것을 확인할 수 있었다. 따라서 거친 면의 섬광 픽셀과 반사체 조합을 사용한 검출기를 사용할 경우 전임상용 PET에서 반응 깊이 측정을 통해 검출 시야 외곽에서의 공간분해능을 향상시킬 수 있을 것이다.