Design and fabrication of a sandwich detector for material discrimination and contrast cancellation in dual-energy based x-ray imaging

Citation

Palakkappilly Alikunju, R., Buchanan, I., Esposito, M., Morehen, J., Khan, A., Stamatis, Y., Iacovou, N., Bullard, E., Anaxagoras, T., Brodrick, J., & Olivo, A. (2024). Design and fabrication of a sandwich detector for material discrimination and contrast cancellation in dual-energy based x-ray imaging. Journal of Applied Physics, 135(15), 154501. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0200269

Keywords

• Dual-energy imaging
• Material discrimination
• Contrast cancellation
• Sandwich detector
• CMOS APS sensors
• Scintillators
• Cu filter
• RQA5 beam quality
• Electron density (ρe)
• Effective atomic number (Ze)
• SIRZ method

Brief

This article details the design and fabrication of a "sandwich" x-ray detector, which uses two layers of CMOS APS sensors to perform dual-energy imaging for material discrimination and contrast cancellation.

Summary

This article describes the design and testing of an "energy-integrating multilayer detector," called a sandwich detector, for use in dual-energy x-ray imaging. The detector is intended for applications like material discrimination and contrast cancellation.

The researchers used a simulation model to determine the optimal thickness for components of the sandwich detector. They determined that a 250 μm thick top scintillator and a 0.25 mm thick copper filter inserted between the detector layers would be optimal. The simulation was confirmed by experimental results, which showed the 0.25 mm copper filter provided the best outcome. The researchers suggest that, in the future, they will need to investigate how the sandwich detector functions at higher x-ray energies and with higher Z materials.

Origin: https://pubs.aip.org/aip/jap/article/135/15/154501/3282837