SNR improvement in dedicated breast CT using energy weighting with photon counting detectors

Photon counting x-ray detectors (PCD) promise to provide substantial improvements in computed tomography (CT) as compared to Cesium Iodide based energy integrating x-ray detectors (CsI-EID). This paper investigates the possible improvements in signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) obtained by using a cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) crystal based PCD with energy weighting (EW) in low dose breast CT (BCT).