Dennis R. Schaart heads the section Medical Physics & Technology at the Radiation Science & Technology department of Delft University of Technology (TU Delft). His research group focusses on optics-based radiation imaging detectors for medical imaging. They have a track record in silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) based scintillation detectors for time-of-flight positron emission tomography (TOF-PET). For example, they achieved a world-record coincidence resolving time of < 100 ps FWHM in the detection of annihilation photon pairs with SiPMs in 2009. Today, SiPMs are used in the high-end TOF-PET systems of all major medical imaging device manufacturers.
The group’s research interests furthermore include prompt gamma imaging for in-vivo dosimetry in proton therapy and SiPM-based photon-counting X-ray imaging detectors for anatomical imaging and image guidance of medical interventions. Dennis leads the Technology for Oncology program of the Delft Health Initiative and serves as a member of the R&D Program Board of the Holland Particle Therapy Centre (HollandPTC), a joint initiative of Erasmus Medical Centre (Erasmus MC), Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC), and TU Delft. He has (co-)authored more than 150 peer-reviewed papers and is a frequently invited speaker.
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Scientific interests
- Ultrafast time-of-flight PET detectors
- Prompt gamma imaging for treatment verification in proton therapy
- Photon-counting X-ray detectors for medical imaging
Expertise:
- Scintillation detectors
- Silicon photomultipliers
- Signal processing
- Photon counting (timing) statistics
Models and equipment:
- Laboratory facilities for scintillation detector research and characterization
- Facility for tomographic imaging experiments
- Statistical analysis of detector performance
- Monte Carlo modelling of medical imaging systems