Feasibility of amorphous selenium based photon counting detectors for digital breast tomosynthesis

Jiong Chen; Joerg Lehnert; Paul O'Connor; Gianluigi De Geronimo; Enrico Dolazza; Olivier Tousignant; Luc Laperrière; Jonathan Greenspan; Wei Zhao

doi:10.1117/12.813361

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13 March 2009 Feasibility of amorphous selenium based photon counting detectors for digital breast tomosynthesis

Jiong Chen, Joerg Lehnert, Paul O'Connor, Gianluigi De Geronimo, Enrico Dolazza, Olivier Tousignant, Luc Laperrière, Jonathan Greenspan, Wei Zhao

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Proceedings Volume 7258, Medical Imaging 2009: Physics of Medical Imaging; 72581G (2009) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.813361
Event: SPIE Medical Imaging, 2009, Lake Buena Vista (Orlando Area), Florida, United States

Abstract

Amorphous selenium (a-Se) has been incorporated successfully in direct conversion flat panel x-ray detectors, and has demonstrated superior image quality in screening mammography and digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) under energy integration mode. The present work explores the potential of a-Se for photon counting detectors in DBT. We investigated major factors contributing to the variation in the charge collected by a pixel upon absorption of each x-ray photon. These factors included x-ray photon interaction, detector geometry, charge transport, and the pulse shaping and noise properties of the photon counting readout circuit. Experimental measurements were performed on a linear array test structure constructed by evaporating an a-Se layer onto an array of 100 μm pitch strip electrodes, which are connected to a 32 channel low noise photon counting integrated circuit. The measured pulse height spectrum (PHS) under polychromatic xray exposure was interpreted quantitatively using the factors identified. Based on the understanding of a-Se photon counting performance, design parameters were proposed for a 2D detector with high quantum efficiency and count rate that could meet the requirements of photon counting detector for DBT.

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Jiong Chen, Joerg Lehnert, Paul O'Connor, Gianluigi De Geronimo, Enrico Dolazza, Olivier Tousignant, Luc Laperrière, Jonathan Greenspan, and Wei Zhao "Feasibility of amorphous selenium based photon counting detectors for digital breast tomosynthesis", Proc. SPIE 7258, Medical Imaging 2009: Physics of Medical Imaging, 72581G (13 March 2009); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.813361

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