APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR PHOTON COUNTING

摘要

PURPOSE: A photon counting apparatus is provided to prevent pulse pile-up and photon loss by adaptively selecting an available counter without dead time among a plurality of counters. CONSTITUTION: A photon counting apparatus(100) comprises a sensor unit(101), a counting unit(104), a switching unit(102), and a control unit(103). The counting unit comprises a plurality of counters. The switching unit transmits an electric signal corresponding to an optical signal to one of the counters. The control unit receives a flag signal indicating the availability of each counter from the counting unit and controls the switching unit to transmit an electric signal to a counter without dead time. Each counter comprises a discriminator which outputs a digital reference value by comparing the voltage or current corresponding to an electric signal with the reference voltage or current and a digital counter which counts the digital reference value.