Whether it is for medical or commercial use, an X-ray equipment is worth a lot of money, in which the flat panel detector accounts for a higher part of the cost of the whole machine. Therefore, understanding the types and characteristics of flat panel detectors is an important guide for us to buy X-ray equipment.
Currently on the market common X-ray detector, roughly divided into the following three types of materials.
First, amorphous silicon detector
Amorphous silicon is currently the most mainstream X-ray detector sensor technology, mainly by the scintillator, optical sensing panels and charge readout circuits, etc., the principle is that cesium iodide, gadolinium sulphur oxide and other materials for the conversion medium will be converted to visible X-ray photons, and then through the analog-to-digital converter to form a digital image. At present, the main products of mainstream medical imaging equipment manufacturers use this technology.
As one of the few one-stop suppliers of general radiology equipment in China, Perlove adopts amorphous silicon flat-panel detectors for its C-arm/DR/gastrointestinal machine and other X-ray equipment, and technically makes cesium iodide, a scintillating crystalline material, into a “pine-needle”-like planting on amorphous silicon, which makes the flat-panels of the cesium iodide pasted on amorphous silicon more stable than those of other manufacturers. Because the cesium iodide paste technology of the flat panel with the use of longer, the cesium iodide will loosen, resulting in a decline in imaging quality, while the “pine needle” technology of the flat panel will not appear the situation.
Cesium iodide amorphous silicon flat panel detector
CMOS detectors are made from a single semiconductor wafer and can be used to detect visible light directly or with scintillation crystals to detect X-rays and other high-energy radiation. For different applications, can be equipped with different thickness Gadox or needle CsI scintillator, CMOS detector as a recording medium of digital ray detection technology, high detection accuracy, good temperature adaptability, adaptability of the structure, with high resolution, low image noise, fast acquisition speed、, in the application of high-speed small-size dynamic X-ray imaging equipment (eg, dental CBCT field) has a clear advantage. Advantage.
IGZO detector: IGZO sensor technology is to use IGZO oxide material to manufacture TFT switches, to achieve high electron mobility and low switching noise, and can be used to achieve a larger fill factor of a smaller TFT size, to improve the sensitivity of the sensor. With better performance than amorphous silicon detectors and lower cost than CMOS detectors, they are mainly used in high-speed dynamic digital X-ray detectors, and have been widely used in C-arm, DSA, gastrointestinal, dental CBCT, and industrial NDT markets.
Among these detectors, amorphous silicon detectors occupy the largest share of the X-ray detector market with their relatively low cost, high imaging quality, long service life, and applicability to mass production, while CMOS detectors also occupy the mainstream of small-sized X-ray detectors with their small and precise characteristics.IGZO detectors will gradually be commercialized starting from 2019, and the U.S. Varex, South Korea’s Ray Rayx, and the U.S. Varex will be commercialized from 2019. Varex, South Korea’s Rayence have launched IGZO detector products, which are also more cutting-edge products.
In addition to three materials, the application of chalcogenide materials may be an important breakthrough direction for future X-ray detectors, and its excellent charge formation and transport properties make it an ideal material choice to replace amorphous selenium, cadmium telluride and cadmium zinc telluride and other materials to realize direct X-ray conversion. It can be expected that with the addition of chalcogenide, the sensitivity of future X-ray detectors will easily increase by an order of magnitude, which is of great significance for applications in medical imaging and other fields.
