Construction and initial performance evaluation of a newly developed plant PET system

Abstract In plant research, positron emission tomography (PET) is occasionally employed for physiological studies, offering valuable insights. However, the generally high cost of PET systems and their suboptimal design for plant research pose challenges to their application in this field. To address these issues, we have developed a new PET system optimized specifically for plant research. The PET detector ring was positioned vertically to enable measurements of plants in their normal upright position. The developed plant PET system features a transaxial field of view (FOV) of approximately 12 cm and an axial FOV slightly larger than 9 cm, allowing for the imaging of relatively small-sized plants. To facilitate imaging of taller plants, the PET system can expand the axial FOV by changing the subject height using a lab jack, enabling the imaging of taller plant species. The measured spatial resolution at the central FOV was 3.3 mm FWHM, and the sensitivity was 3.7%. The timing resolution was 6.78 ns FWHM with a lower energy threshold set to 350 keV. Phantom images simulating plants were successfully measured using the developed plant PET system. We conclude that the developed plant PET system holds promise for effective plant imaging.