What does it take to achieve high quality X-ray imaging?

X-ray detectors are widely used in medical scenarios such as chest X-rays and computed tomography (CT), and are an extremely important technology. To date, research based on X-ray detection has won more than ten Nobel Prizes. In recent years, to reduce the damage caused by radiation to the human body, highly sensitive new perovskite X-ray detectors have become a research hotspot. Researchers hope to apply them to low-dose imaging scenarios to replace existing X-ray detectors.
According to research reports, perovskite X-ray detectors have achieved ultra-high sensitivity. However, their imaging quality, measured by detective quantum efficiency (DQE), still has a lot of room for improvement. One of the important reasons is that multiple factors influence the DQE, but these factors are not discussed in detail and what are the quantitative requirements on them are not studied.
Researchers led by Ph.D. Jincong Pang and Prof. Jiang Tang at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), China, are interested in X-ray flat-panel detectors. They decided to find out what exactly it takes to achieve X-ray imaging with high DQE. They consider all related factors, like the X-ray source, the electric circuit, and X-ray detectors. The influences on DQE are analyzed and discussed using detailed equations. With these equations, we can successfully calculate the requirements for the performances of  X-ray detectors with a given X-ray spectrum, dose, and electric circuit. To achieve high DQE imaging performance, the detector should take into account various indicators such as noise and dark current. Simply developing high sensitivity is not the future development trend. The work entitled “Quantitative modeling of perovskite-based direct X-ray flat panel detectors” was published on Frontiers of Optoelectronics (published on Sep. 26, 2024).