Roger D. Durst

A parallel-plate resistive-anode gaseous detector for X-ray imaging

A novel gaseous detector, based on parallel-plate gas amplification with a resistive anode and remote readout electrode, is described. The detector is significantly less prone to discharges than other gaseous wireless detectors and unique in its ability to achieve high gain at high counting rates. A local counting rate > 5 /spl times/ 10/sup 5/ counts/mm/sup 2/-sec at a gas gain of up to 10/sup 5/ has been achieved in a 14 /spl times/ 14 cm/sup 2/ area detector for diffraction applications. The detector radiation hardness is characterized by the anode accumulated charge > 100 Coul/cm/sup 2/. The detector is sealed and its re-gassing period is estimated to be 5-10 years. The operating characteristics of the new detector, its spatial resolution, and linearity are described and preliminary X-ray diffraction data are presented.

Scintillators for high efficiency and high spatial resolution in x-ray imaging applications

A new high efficiency, low-bandgap phosphor, ZnSe:Cu,Ce,Cl is described which exhibits a significantly higher quantum gain than conventional x-ray phosphors and more closely matches the spectral sensitivity of silicon sensors. For many imaging applications this phosphor thus promises significantly superior performance compared to conventional phosphors.

A large area X-ray imager with online linearization and noise suppression

A new large area imager for X-ray crystallography is described based on active pixel sensor technology. In order to meet the demanding requirements for crystallography the detector is designed with real time correction for reset noise, nonlinearity, spatial uniformity and bad pixels. The design of the detector is described along with its operating characteristics including noise, DQE and quantum gain. We describe new techniques to rapidly calibrate and characterize the X-ray imager.

Design and characterization of a large-area lens-coupled CCD detector for macromolecular crystallography

We have prototyped and characterized a very large format X-ray detector for macromolecular crystallography. The X-ray field strength is converted to visible light in a phosphor film. Light from the phosphor is focused onto a CCD imager by a lens specially designed for this detector, that has a very high numerical aperture. The CCD is very large (61 mm, 4,096 × 4,096 pixels), and employs a very low-noise on-chip preamplifier. Lens coupling between phosphor film and CCD avoids many of the optical imperfections of fiber optic coupling, but it remains a challenge to make a lens system with optical transfer efficiency matching or exceeding that of fiber optical systems. We have met this challenge by enhancing system gain in our detector through implementation of modern lens technologies and imaginative CCD design. At this point the system gain equals that of conventional CCD-based X-ray crystallography detectors, which couple the CCD to the phosphor through a fiber optic taper. Although many of our technical developments could also be used in fiber optic detectors, the overriding virtues of the lens-couple detector are simplicity, optical perfection, and cost.

Novel photon-counting detectors for x-ray diffraction applications

A novel sealed gaseous PPAC detector is described which is significantly less prone to discharges and can consequently achieve high gas gains at high counting rates. The detector has demonstrated stable gains greater than 104 at counting rates in excess of 107 counts/mm2-sec.

Indirect-detection single-photon-counting x-ray detector for breast tomosynthesis

X-ray mammography is a crucial screening tool for early identification of breast cancer. However, the overlap of anatomical features present in projection images often complicates the task of correctly identifying suspicious masses. As a result, there has been increasing interest in acquisition of volumetric information through digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) which, compared to mammography, offers the advantage of depth information. Since DBT requires acquisition of many projection images, it is desirable that the noise in each projection image be dominated by the statistical noise of the incident x-ray quanta and not by the additive noise of the imaging system (referred to as quantum-limited imaging) and that the cumulative dose be as low as possible (e.g., no more than for a mammogram). Unfortunately, the electronic noise (~2000 electrons) present in current DBT systems based on active matrix, flat-panel imagers (AMFPIs) is still relatively high compared with modest x-ray gain of the a-Se and CsI:Tl x-ray converters often used. To overcome the modest signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) limitations of current DBT systems, we have developed a large-area x-ray imaging detector with the combination of an extremely low noise (~20 electrons) active-pixel CMOS and a specially designed high resolution scintillator. The high sensitivity and low noise of such system provides better SNR by at least an order of magnitude than current state-of-art AMFPI systems and enables x-ray indirect-detection single photon counting (SPC) at mammographic energies with the potential of dose reduction.

Novel, photon counting X-ray detectors

A novel sealed gaseous parallel plate avalanche chamber detector is described which is significantly less prone to discharges and can consequently achieve high gas gains at high counting rates. The detector has demonstrated stable gains greater than 10 4 at counting rates in excess of 10 7 counts/mm 2 s.

A photon-counting large-area detector – PHOTON III

The appearance of significantly stronger third generation synchrotron sources at large scale facilities and microfocus technology using in-house sources has led to the replacement of imaging plates by CCD, CMOS and HPAD detectors. Current state-of-the-art CPAD detectors, such as the PHOTON II, deliver impressive results and have allowed the collection of the first in-house GPCR structure only a few months ago

Advances in CCD detector technology for x-ray diffraction applications

Phosphor-coupled CCDs are established as one of the most successful technologies for x-ray diffraction. This application demands that the CCD simultaneously achieve both the highest possible sensitivity and high readout speeds. Recently, wafer-scale, back illuminated devices have become available which offer significantly higher quantum efficiency than conventional devices (the Fairchild Imaging CCD 486 BI). However, since back thinning significantly changes the electrical properties of the CCD the high speed operation of wafer-scale, back-illuminated devices is not well understood. Here we describe the operating characteristics (including noise, linearity, full well capacity and CTE) of the back-illuminated CCD 486 at readout speeds up to 4 MHz.

A high-rate gaseous area detector for x-ray diffraction applications

A new photon-counting area detector, based on parallel-plate gas amplification with a resistive anode and remote readout electrode is described. The detector is sealed and has sensitive area of 14x14 cm2. The detector is unique in its ability to achieve high gain at high counting rates. A local counting rate >10e5 counts/mm2-sec has been achieved at a gain of 105 in a radiation-hard, non-polymerizing gas mixture. The global readout rate is limited by the delay line and electronics to <106 counts/sec but more sophisticated readout schemes should allow this rate to be increased by more than an order of magnitude. The operating characteristics of the detector are described and preliminary x-ray diffraction data are presented.