A xenon ionization detector for digital radiography.
Xenon gas x-ray detectors have been used successfully in CT scanners; however, they have been found to be unsuitable for digital radiography. We have designed and built a new type of xenon x-ray detector array and tested its suitability for digital radiography. The detector consists of two parallel plates separated by a 0.5-mm gap, filled with xenon gas at a pressure of about 30 atm. One of the plates is the high-voltage electrode, while the other is a circuit board etched to form an array of metal collector strips focused on the x-ray source. Since there are no metal septa separating the individual detector elements, the dose efficiency of the detector is high, but image degradation will occur due to cross-talk between detector elements. Measurements of the cross-talk show that about an 18% reduction in contrast will occur, when a low contrast object, subtending one detector element, is imaged. We have also measured a detector MTF of 14% at 2 lp/mm, a signal of 10 pC for a 1-mR x-ray exposure at the detector entrance, a 6% nonlinearity in the detector signal over about 3 orders of magnitude in x-ray exposure, and a charge collection time (time response) of about 0.1 ms. From these results it is concluded that this new detector design is feasible for digital radiography.
D003201:Computers; D011859:Radiography / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D014978:Xenon
D014978:Xenon