Photon/energy identifying X-ray and gamma ray imaging device (“PID”) with a two dimensional array of pixels and system therefrom

摘要

An photon (energy) identifying radiation imaging device, for imaging x-ray, gamma ray and charged radiation in medical, dental and industrial applications. The imaging device includes a detector substrate and a readout substrate. The detector substrate has a plurality of detector pixels and the readout substrate has a plurality of corresponding pixel readout circuits. Each pixel readout circuit has circuitry for processing an input analog signal and also has one or more buffers for temporarily storing values corresponding to the signal of at least two individual incoming radiation events. The readout substrate includes a digital controller having digital processing units for carrying out off-pixel digital signal processing and data/rate reduction prior to readout.

主权项

1. A photon/energy identifying radiation imaging device comprising:
a detector substrate having a two dimensional array of radiation detector pixels for detecting incoming radiation events that allows for a count rate determination, in events per pixel per second, of incoming individual radiation events and to identify an energy of each incoming radiation event, said radiation detector pixels convert each incoming radiation event into a single-photon electrical signal; and a readout substrate comprising a two dimensional array of readout pixel circuits coupled to said radiation detector pixels for processing electrical signals respectively corresponding to the single-photon electrical signal of each said incoming radiation events, wherein said readout substrate further comprises both of:
a peak detector circuit to detect the peak value of a single-photon electrical signal, a sample and hold circuit to sample and hold said peak value and an Analog to Digital Conversion stage for digitizing said peak value of said single-photon electrical signals from individual incident photon events into digital values of the peak of the single photon signal respectively representing values of the energy of the detected individual radiation events, anda digital controller for receiving said digital signal values and further processing the received digital signal values prior to readout, wherein each of said incoming radiation events is an individual radiation photon from the group consisting of at least one of x-rays and gamma rays.