| 摘要 |
<p>The present invention relates to a single photon counting detector system (14), comprising:
a) a layer of photosensitive material (4);
b) an N×M array of photo-detector diodes (2) arranged in said layer of photosensitive material (4); each of said photo-detector diodes (2) having a bias potential interface (12) and a diode output interface, said bias potential interface (12) of each photo-detector diode (2) being connected to a bias potential (V bias ) ;
c) an N×M array of high gain, low noise readout unit cells (RO), one readout unit cell (RO) for each photo-detector diode (2);
d) each readout unit cell (RO) comprising:
d1) an input interface (IN) connected to said diode output interface, a high-gain voltage amplifying means (amp) comprising an integration capacitor (Cint),
d2) at least two parallel lines of digital counters,
d3) each line comprising a comparator having an individually selectable threshold (threshold1, threshold2) and a gateable section (gate1, gate2) to determine the counting intervals of the digital counters.
e) a multiplexing means allowing to access the readout cell unit either on a per pixel basis or for several pixels in parallel to read out the digital counter to a data processing means transfering the data off the chip to the data processing means, in particular external readout electronics which do not form an integral part of the readout unit cells</p> |
