Recent Developments of Photon Counting and Energy Discriminating Detectors for Radiographic Imaging

The direct detection of X-ray photons into electrical signals is enabled by usage of highly absorbing photo conducting materials (e.g. CdTe) as detection layer of an underlying CMOS semiconductor X-ray image detector. If the read-out speed is high enough (ca. 50 - 100 ns dead time) single X-ray photons can be counted and their energy measured. Read-out noise and dark image correction can be diminished. By setting energy thresholds, selected energy ranges of the X-ray spectrum can be detected or suppressed. This allows material discrimination or reduction of scattered radiation, which results in an enhanced contrast sensitivity.