1

Ospedale di Sassuolo SPA, Sassuolo

2
Alma Mater Studiorum, Physics Dept, University of Bologna
s.rivetti@ospedalesassuolo.it

Flat panel detectors based on irradiation side

sampling readout (ISS): physical characterization
In the study will be present the physical characterization of a new indirect FP detector technology and will be show the results for two systems based on this new technology and developed using GOS (Fig 1) and CsI (Fig 2)
scintillators phosphor. This new technological improvement is known as “irradiation side sampling readout method” (ISS): in ISS method (Fig 3), opposite to the conventional FP readout, in order to better acquire light signal
from the scintillation, the photodiode and the TFT array are positioned on detector’s top where X-rays impacts on the scintillation layer, given that on this side the light signal is stronger and sharpest.
In fact simulating the X-ray absorption fraction in function of the phosphor thickness for two typical radiological quality beam and assuming that GOS and CsI densities are equal to 4.5 and 7.1 respectively, half photon fluence
is absorbed at middle energy in 100 um and around in 150 um at high energy whereas the typical detector thickness is around 400-500 um (Fig 4).
To reduce the X-ray absorption before entering the phosphor in ISS readout the glass substrate, usually employed in conventional FP, is replaced by an alkali substrate such as the one found in an active matrix LCD: the
coupling between scintillator and TFTs are made using an optically transparent adhesive (fig 5). The total absorption of the substrate is estimate in around 9% at RQA 5 quality beam. In GOS scintillator the density filling is
increased using a mixed grains consisting in 6 and 2 um grains in a ratio of 7 to 3 (1). In particularly for CsI phosphor, thanks’ to the upper better crystallization the coupling with the TFT substrate seems to be better effective.
The detector’s pixel size is 150 um, so its Nyquist frequency is around 3.3 and the effective fill factor is supposed to be around 100%. Some very interesting technical detector’s details can be found on a recent article by Sato
published on the last SPIE proceedings (“Effect of X-ray incident direction and scintillator layer design on image quality of indirect conversion flat panel detector with GOS phosphor”).
In the analysis all acquisitions were obtained using three different IEC quality beams: RQA 3 (50 kVp and 10 mm Al added filter), RQA 5 (70 kVp and 20 mm Al added filter) and RQA9 (120 kVp and 40 mm Al added filter). The
physical characterization has been performed on linearized images according to IEC Standards and a clinical dose range, between 1 to 15 uGy, has been investigated.

Fig. 1: GOS phosphor structure Fig. 2: CsI phosphor structure

Fig. 4: X-ray absorption fraction in function of the phosphor thickness

X-ray

Fig. 3: Comparison between conventional and ISS readout method Fig. 5: ISS detector sketch

Results: The MTFs reported in the Fig 6 are the average on the two directions: in the range of investigated exposures the MTF resulted to be quite independent from quality beam and from exposure level. Comparing the MTF
results to those published for FPs based on scintillation phosphors ISS exhibits higher MTF values, especially at middle and high frequency.
In Fig 7, for both systems, the NNPS is shown at a typical clinical dose value. As shown by Saunder et Al. for a strictly quantum noise (QN) limited detector the product of the NPS times photon fluence (q) remain constant
for every exposure and so the dose normalized NPS can help to compare the noise levels: as expected CsI display better noise characteristic at low frequency instead the GOS, thanks’ to a worst MTF, display a better
performances in the high frequencies. For both systems the QN limit seems to be positioned around 1.5 uGy. The NPS curves shape is similar for all quality beam.
The 2DNPS (Fig 8 left) analysis reveals a filtration process along the perpendicular axis. The filter effect is described comparing the NNPS calculated both in perpendicular and radial direction (Fig 8 right).
Combining the MTF, NPS and the photon fluence we obtain the DQE (Fig 9): thanks to the very good physical characteristics the both systems show a very high efficiency: namely around 65% and 40% respectively for CsI
and GOS at RQA 5 and 50% and 35% at RQA 9. The DQE shape is similar for both the considered quality beams.

Fig. 6: MTF results Fig. 8: 1D filtration process

Fig. 7: NNPS and NNPS*q results Fig. 10: DQE results

Conclusion: ISS seems to be a very smart method in X-ray detection and seems to provides very good performances in terms of efficiency and resolution: some further studies have to be done to better understand the axis
filtration process. The methods permits to use the best phosphor thickness for every quality beams since most of the X-ray fluence is absorbed very close to the irradiation detector side. From a clinical point of view the GOS
system, that is in trial at the Department of Radiology at Sassuolo Hospital, shows a very high image quality level.