Nuclear Inst.

and Methods in Physics Research, A 1050 (2023) 168136

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Nuclear Inst. and Methods in Physics Research, A

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/nima

Full Length Article

Effect of different scintillator choices on the X-ray imaging performance of

CMOS sensors
Rimcy Palakkappilly Alikunju a ,∗, Stephen Kearney a , Robert Moss a , Asmar Khan b ,
Yiannis Stamatis b , Edward Bullard b , Thalis Anaxagoras b , James Brodrick b , Alessandro Olivo a
a UCL Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Malet Place, London WC1E 6BT, UK
b ISDI Ltd, Highgate Business Centre, 33 Greenwood Place, London NW5 1LB, UK

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: The ability of wafer scale Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) imagers to integrate sensing
CMOS APS with analogue to digital conversion at the pixel level has led to their widespread appeal in a variety of imaging
Fibre optic plate (FOP) applications. This has led to significant improvement in speed and reduction in read-out noise in these imagers
Air kerma
when compared to charge-coupled devices (CCDs) and amorphous silicon/selenium based flat panel imagers
Scintillator
(FPIs). This paper compares the performance characteristics of CMOS X-ray detectors in various configurations
pMTF
DQE
by varying certain parameters of a typical X-ray detector such as fibre optic face plate (FOP), scintillator
substrate coating, sensor pixel pitch and scintillator thickness. The evaluations were carried out using RQA5
(70 kV) radiation beam quality aimed at general radiography applications. At comparable Air Kerma values,
detectors with a fibre optic plate showed an overall better DQE performance at most spatial frequencies,
starting slightly lower at low frequencies then overtaking the ‘‘no-FOP’’ case at mid and high frequencies. The
analysis of detectors with different substrate coatings for the scintillators showed comparatively higher DQE
for the white-coated aluminium substrate scintillator compared to the black-coated one. The DQE comparison
of detectors with 50 μm and 100 μm pixel pitch resulted in a higher DQE for the 100 μm pixel pitch one,
with the caveat that the scintillator was thick enough as to render differences in pMTF negligible. Finally, the
comparison of scintillators with varying thicknesses showed that the thickest scintillator yielded the highest
DQE. These characterisation studies helped in understanding the suitability of these different configurations
in various general radiography application scenarios and could be of help to prospective users to determine
the overall configuration that best fits their specific imaging needs.

1. Introduction acceptable levels of image quality [3,11]. Some of the weakest points
of CMOS sensors are the limited radiation hardness and the size of the
In recent years, wafer scale Complementary Metal Oxide Semi- single imager tile [6]. However, stitching and tiling methods can be
conductor (CMOS) active pixel sensors (APSs) based X-ray imagers applied to create sensors with areas sufficiently large to be suitable for
have been widely used in bio-medical applications and beyond [1–8]. medical X-ray imaging applications [3,12].
These sensors have emerged as an alternative to amorphous silicon or This paper reports on X-ray characterisation studies performed on
selenium flat panel imagers (FPIs) and charge-coupled devices (CCDs) CMOS based indirect conversion detectors manufactured at ISDI [13],
[2,3]. a CMOS image sensor manufacturer based in London. The studied
The main advantages of CMOS sensors are low read noise detectors were mainly aimed at dental, Non Destructive Testing (NDT),
(60–150e− ), high frame rate, high spatial resolution, low power con- Industrial CT, and fluoroscopy applications. In particular, we studied
sumption, and low-cost mass production capability [2–4,6,7,9]. Their the effects that certain changes in configuration have on the overall
competitors such as amorphous Si suffer from higher read noise X-ray performance of the detector, namely (i) using a fibre optic plate
(>1000e− ), lower frame rate and reduced spatial resolution due to a (FOP) versus not using it, (ii) having different substrate coatings for the
typically larger pixel pitch [2,10], whereas CCDs have high production scintillators, (iii) using sensors with different pixel pitches, and finally
cost and are physically small (e.g., 2–4 cm 2 ), hence demagnification (iv) using scintillators of different thicknesses.
is needed to access larger fields of view. Nevertheless, the demagnifi- The performance evaluation was based on the extraction of X-ray
cation raises the possibility of a secondary quantum sink to maintain characterisation metrics such as sensitivity, presampling modulation

∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [email protected] (R.P. Alikunju).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2023.168136
Received 12 December 2022; Received in revised form 10 February 2023; Accepted 10 February 2023
Available online 13 February 2023
0168-9002/© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
R.P. Alikunju, S. Kearney, R. Moss et al. Nuclear Inst. and Methods in Physics Research, A 1050 (2023) 168136

Table 1 differentiated using a [−1, 0, 1] or [−0.5, 0, 0.5] kernel to obtain the

Sensor specifications. oversampled line spread function (LSF) [14]. The modulus of the fast
Sensor Technology Pixel pitch (μm) Image size Fourier transform of the oversampled LSF, normalised to one at zero
Sensor 1 CMOS APS 50 2802 x 2400 frequency, gives the Modulation Transfer Function (MTF). To avoid
Sensor 2 CMOS APS 100 1402 x 1200 aliasing effects, the MTF is calculated up to the Nyquist frequency
Sensor 3 CMOS APS 100 2063 x 2049
(𝐹NYQ ), yielding the pMTF [18].

2.2. X-ray sensitivity

transfer function (pMTF), noise power spectrum (NPS), and detec-
tive quantum efficiency (DQE) as per the IEC 62220-1 standard [14] The average output in Digital Numbers (DN) for a specific 𝐾a value,
specifications in each case. The pMTF defines the spatial resolution known as the signal transfer property (STP) [3,17], was utilised to
of the detector, i.e., the ability of the detector to identify closely express the X-ray sensitivity of the detector at 70 kV (RQA5). The
spaced features as distinct, whereas the NPS expresses the distribution Air Kerma measurements were obtained by varying the exposure time
of image noise at the various spatial frequency components of the which can be pre-set via the X-ray source settings and noting the
image. The combination of signal to noise ratio (SNR), MTF and NPS corresponding reading from the calibrated IC. The linearity of the
sensor in each case was evaluated by performing a linear regression
determines the DQE, which is a compact expression for the contrast-
fit.
detail resolution [4]. The radiation beam quality used throughout the
study was RQA5(70 kV), aimed at general radiography applications.
2.3. Noise power spectrum
2. Materials and methods
The NPS describes how the noise is transferred by the system at
different frequencies. The NPS is performed on a stack of 60 images
The X-ray performance evaluation was performed by using an X-ray acquired for each exposure time. The images were first offset and gain
source with a tungsten (W) anode placed inside a Faxitron (Hologic, corrected. About 40 reference frames corresponding to each exposure
Marlborough, MA) cabinet. In line with the RQA5 (70 kV) radiation were used for gain correction and these images should have as little
beam quality requirements set forth by IEC standards [14], 21 mm noise as possible. Due to uncorrelated noise (i.e., error) propagation, 40
external Al filtration was used throughout the measurements; The IEC reference frames are expected to decrease the NNPS and subsequently
standards require this is added to simulate the imaged organs [3,15]. the DQE results by ∼2.5% [19]. This is acceptable because the IEC
The Air-Kerma (𝐾a , in μGy), measurements at the detector surface were standard allows an uncertainty of 5% for NNPS and 10% for the DQE
performed with the Inovision 35050A calibrated Ionisation Chamber results.
(IC). The NPS is calculated from 256*256 Regions of Interest (ROIs), first
Table 1 shows the specifications of the sensors used for the charac- by moving progressively in the horizontal direction from the top left
terisation studies. Sensor 2 and sensor 3 are manufactured in a similar corner of the image and then in the vertical direction until the end of
way and vary only in their dimensions. the image such that every new ROI is overlapped by 128 pixels with
Although in principle both Low Full Well (LFW) and High Full Well the previous one. A second order polynomial fit S(x 𝑖 , y 𝑖 ) was applied
(HFW) modes of operation were available, this paper addresses only to each captured image to correct for any residual backgrounds trends
the LFW mode. (due to e.g. the heel effect), and subtracted from the flat-field image
All characterised X-ray detectors were coupled to columnar Thal- I(x 𝑖 , y 𝑖 ). The average 2D NPS is then calculated by applying a 2D
lium activated Caesium Iodide (CsI:Tl) scintillators. These scintillators Fourier transform to each ROI for all the acquired frames as per Eq.
offer high spatial resolution due to the light guiding property of their (1) [3,4,14]:
columnar structures. In most cases, an FOP is inserted between the
𝛥𝑥𝛥𝑦 ∑ |
𝑀
{ ( ) ( )}|2
scintillator and the sensor to prevent direct interaction of X-rays in 𝑁𝑃 𝑆 (𝑢, 𝑣) = |𝐹 𝐹 𝑇 𝐼 𝑥𝑖 , 𝑦𝑖 − 𝑆 𝑥𝑖 , 𝑦𝑖 | (1)
𝑀𝑁𝑥 𝑁𝑦 𝑚=1 | |
the sensor. If the scintillator is directly coupled to the detector, radi-
ation can penetrate through it and interact in the sensor itself, with a where u and v are the spatial frequencies corresponding to x and y, 𝛥x
small number of events producing much large charge quantities thus and 𝛥y are the pixel pitches along x and y, 𝑁𝑥 and 𝑁𝑦 express the ROI
increasing noise [3,16]. Unless otherwise stated, the FOPs used in the size in pixels in the x and y directions, M is the number of ROIs used
characterised detectors are 2 mm thick, have a numerical aperture in the ensemble average, and FFT denotes the fast Fourier transform
(N.A) of 1.0, and include extramural absorbers (EMA fibres). operation.
Finally, the 1D NPS is extracted from the 2D NPS by averaging
2.1. Pre-sampling modulation transfer function (pMTF) seven rows and seven columns on both sides of the corresponding
axis, excluding the axis, to provide horizontal and vertical 1D NPSs
The pMTF indicates how efficiently an input signal is transferred respectively.
to the output image at each spatial frequency. It quantifies the spatial
resolution of an imaging system. To calculate the pMTF, the first 2.4. Detective quantum efficiency (DQE)
step is to determine the oversampled Edge Spread Function (ESF). To
determine the oversampled ESF, an opaque, polished edge test object The DQE is a frequency dependent measure of the efficiency of an
(eg: W foil, 1 mm thick) was placed on the detector surface at a imaging system [20]. It indicates the detector’s ability to transfer the
signal to noise ratio (SNR) from input to output, i.e., it is an estimate
shallow angle 𝛼, (1.5 to 3 degrees) with respect to the pixel matrix,
of how effectively it uses the input X-ray quanta. It is given by Eq. (2):
and images are captured and then corrected for any photo response
non-uniformities like gain and offset.
The ESF curves (effectively oversampled edge profiles) were then 𝑆𝑁𝑅2𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑀𝑇 𝐹 2 (𝑓 )
𝐷𝑄𝐸 (𝑓 ) = = (2)
obtained from N consecutive rows/columns located along the edge. 𝑆𝑁𝑅2𝑖𝑛 𝛷
.𝐾𝑎 .𝑁𝑁𝑃 𝑆(𝑓 )
𝐾𝑎
Seven consecutive ESF profiles straddling the dark and bright areas
∅
of the edge image are sufficient to reduce the statistical noise [3,17]. where 𝑘𝑎
is the fluence per Air Kerma, or squared signal to noise ratio
These profiles were laterally shifted with respect to the central one 2
(SNRin ) per Air Kerma given in units of 1/(mm2 ⋅μGy). According to the
so that all curves overlapped closely; they were then averaged to IEC standard, the SNR2in value for the RQA5 beam quality determined
calculate the average oversampled ESF. The oversampled ESF is then using the SPECMAN software is 29653 in units of 1/(mm 2 ⋅μGy) [14].

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R.P. Alikunju, S. Kearney, R. Moss et al. Nuclear Inst. and Methods in Physics Research, A 1050 (2023) 168136

Fig. 1. (a) pMTF comparison for the FOP and no FOP cases. (b) STP curves of the sensors with displayed fitting equations for the FOP and no FOP cases.

Fig. 2. 1D NNPS at different values of 𝐾a for a sensor without (a) and with (b) an FOP. (c) comparison between the FOP and no FOP cases at similar Air Kerma value.

3. Results and discussions protects the sensors by blocking the X-rays from reaching its surface,
thereby preventing radiation damage, as well as from direct X-ray
The pMTF, STP, NPS and DQE evaluation as per the methodology photon interaction, which would increase noise.
described in Section 2 was performed on a series of X-ray detector Fig. 1(b) shows the STP curves for the detector with and without
configurations while varying a specific parameter each time (specified FOP. The Air Kerma ranges from 0.59 μGy to 1.92 μGy for the no-
in the titles of the following sub-sections), to allow for a direct com- FOP case, and from 0.83 μGy to 2.64 μGy for FOP case. An increase in
parison and therefore for an assessment of its effect. The analysis was the mean signal is observed in the no FOP case when compared with
performed by using software written in MATLAB R2021a. the FOP case. This is primarily due to the loss of visible photons as
they travel through the FOP. Both sensitivity curves are linear, with
3.1. X-ray detectors with and without FOP coefficients of determination R2 of approximately 0.999.
Fig. 2(a), (b) show the NNPS curves for identical detectors using
Firstly, the pMTF of a 100 μm pixel pitch(pp) sensor with and the same scintillator with and without an FOP. The detector without
without an FOP was studied. A 600 μm CsI scintillator was used in FOP shows higher noise levels compared to detector with FOP for the
both cases. As can be seen from Fig. 1(a), the detector without the FOP same Air Kerma values; this can be better appreciated in the direct
shows a slightly higher pMTF than that with the FOP (with increases comparison at the same Air Kerma shown in Fig. 2(c), although with
of 3.2%, 6% and 12% at 1.5, 2 and 4 lp/mm, respectively). This is the caveat that the introduction of the FOP causes the detectors to
likely due to the additional interface (scintillator/FOP and FOP/sensor reach quantum limited behaviour at slightly different Air Kerma levels.
as opposed to scintillator/sensor only) which can lead to additional air The increased noise levels at high spatial frequencies could be caused,
gaps allowing more light to diffuse laterally. Uneven contacts between among other things, by direct X-ray interactions in the sensor material.
different surfaces would also contribute to air gaps. An additional Fig. 3(a) and (b) show DQE curves for X-ray detectors with and
factor could be visible photons hitting the walls of the fibre optics without FOP. The DQE (0.1) (i.e., DQE at 0.1 lp/mm) ranges from
in the FOPs at an angle smaller than the critical angle, thus possibly 0.57 to 0.68 (in the 0.59–1.92 μGy Air Kerma range) and from 0.60
penetrating sideways into the neighbouring ones. The FOP, however, to 0.67 (0.83–2.64 μGy Air Kerma range) without and with the FOP,

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R.P. Alikunju, S. Kearney, R. Moss et al. Nuclear Inst. and Methods in Physics Research, A 1050 (2023) 168136

Fig. 3. DQE at 70 kV (RQA5) for a sensor without (a) and with (b) an FOP. (c) comparison between the FOP and no FOP cases at similar Air Kerma value.

Fig. 4. (a) pMTF comparison for white and black coated scintillator substrates. (b) STP curves of the sensors with displayed fitting equations for white and black coated scintillator
substrates.

respectively. Fig. 3(c) shows the direct comparison between DQE curves Fig. 4(b) shows that, thanks to its reflection property, the scintillator
at a specific Air Kerma value for the sensors with and without the with the WCAl coating is more sensitive than the one using BCAl, with
FOP. Overall, the sensor with the FOP has a better DQE performance the former providing an approximately 71% increase in light output
compared to that without it, which is explained by its better noise compared to the latter at the same Air Kerma of 2.16 μGy.
performance, especially at mid and higher frequencies. The NNPS curves for the different substrate coatings are shown in
Fig. 5(a) and (b), and an NNPS comparison at the same Air Kerma is
3.2. X-ray detectors using scintillators with different substrate coatings provided in Fig. 5(c). The direct comparison at the same Air Kerma
of 2.16 μGy shows that the detector with black coated scintillator
In this case, sensor 1 (with a 2 mm FOP) was coupled to 784 μm CsI substrate has a higher noise compared to that with the white coated
scintillators with different substrate coatings. Two substrate coatings substrate.
were used: 0.5 mm white coated aluminium (WCAl), which primarily Fig. 6(a) and (b) shows the DQE curves corresponding to white and
reflects the backward-transmitted scintillation light that hits it, and black substrate coating, with the comparison at the same Air Kerma
0.3 mm black coated aluminium (BCAl), which largely absorbs it. Re- shown in Fig. 6(c). The DQE (0.1) ranges from 0.62 to 0.73 (0.43–
flective coatings, such as the WCAl, maximise the amount of light at the 3.02 μGy Air Kerma range) and from 0.55 to 0.68 (2.16–8.63 μGy Air
sensors by reducing losses of optical signal from the scintillator [21]. Kerma range) with white and black substrate coatings, respectively. The
Since the increased light collection of the WCAl arises from increased direct comparison shows that the DQE is higher for the white coated
internal reflection, this is also accompanied by a larger spread of substrate scintillator, due to the reduced noise levels compared to the
the scintillation light created by individual X-ray photons, and indeed black coated substrate scintillator.
Fig. 4(a) shows a decreased pMTF for the WCAl compared to the BCAl A difference in DQE (0.1) in the two cases can be observed in
case. At 1 lp/mm, the pMTF of WCAl and BCAl are 41.8% and 52.2% Fig. 6(c). It should be noted that the X-ray exposure at which the two
respectively. curves are compared is below the quantum limited regime; at that

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R.P. Alikunju, S. Kearney, R. Moss et al. Nuclear Inst. and Methods in Physics Research, A 1050 (2023) 168136

Fig. 5. 1D NNPS at different values of 𝐾a for (a) white-coated substrate scintillator (b) black-coated substrate scintillator (c) comparison between NNPS values for white and
black-coated scintillator substrates at similar Air Kerma value.

Fig. 6. DQE at 70 kV (RQA5) for (a) white coated Al substrate (b) black coated Al substrate. (c) comparison between white and black coated substrates at a similar Air Kerma
value.

exposure, the use of the white coated scintillator results in more visible demonstrate that, when a scintillator thickness sufficiently larger than
photons reaching the sensor, effectively corresponding to a ‘‘higher the pixel size is employed, the pMTF is not affected by the latter.
X-ray exposure’’ case for the black coated scintillator as far as the Fig. 7(b) shows the STP curves for the two sensors. The Air Kerma
underlying sensor is concerned. ranges between 0.43 and 3.02 μGy for the 50 μm pixel detector, and
between 0.43 and 1.08 μGy for 100 μm pixel one. When comparing
3.3. X-ray detectors with different pixel pitch and same scintillator mean signal values at the identical Air Kerma of 0.43 μGy, the 100 μm
pixel detector shows an approximately four times higher sensitivity
In this case, sensors 1 and 2 with a different pixel pitch of 50 μm compared to the 50 μm pixel one (6727 DN versus 1844 DN), as
and 100 μm, with the same FOP and the same scintillator (784 μm CsI expected due to the ratio between pixel areas. The small deviation is
with WCAl substrate) were compared. The results shown in Fig. 7(a) likely due to the different fill factor in the two cases.

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R.P. Alikunju, S. Kearney, R. Moss et al. Nuclear Inst. and Methods in Physics Research, A 1050 (2023) 168136

Fig. 7. (a) pMTF comparison for the 50 μm and 100 μm pp sensors. (b) STP curves with displayed fitting equations for the 50 μm and 100 μm pp sensor.

Fig. 8. 1D NNPS at different values of Ka for (a) 50 μm pp sensor and (b) 100 μm pp sensor (c) comparison between the NNPS of the 50 μm and 100 μm pp sensors for similar
Air Kerma values.

Fig. 8(a) and (b) shows the NNPS curves for the two pixel sizes. to the correspondingly increased lateral spread of visible light. At 1
Fig. 8(c) shows a direct NNPS comparison for the two sensors at similar lp/mm, pMTF values were 68.6%, 57.7% and 49.2% for the 250 μm,
Air Kerma values, showing a better performance for the 100 μm pixel 290 μm and 800 μm scintillators, respectively.
sensor. Fig. 10(b) shows the STP curves of the detector for the same
Fig. 9(a) and (b) show the DQE as a function of spatial frequency sensor/scintillator combinations as in Fig. 10(a), highlighting the trade-
for the two sensors. The DQE (0.1) ranges from 0.62 to 0.73 (0.43– off between sensitivity and resolution as the scintillator thickness in-
3.02 μGy Air Kerma range) and from 0.76 to 0.86 (0.43–1.01 μGy Air creases. The graph clearly shows that the mean signal increases with the
Kerma range) for the 50 μm and 100 μm pixel pitch sensors, respectively. thickness of the scintillator at the same Air Kerma, in correspondence to
Fig. 9(c) shows that the DQE of the 100 μm pixel pitch sensor is higher its increased X-ray stopping power; for example, the 800 μm scintillator
than the 50 μm pixel pitch one, since the former has a better NNPS and provides the highest sensitivity but also the lowest pMTF values. While
approximately the same pMTF. in principle one would expect the STP values of the 290 μm scintillator
(provided by a different manufacturer) to be closer to the 250 μm than
3.4. X-ray detectors with different thickness scintillator the 800 μm one, this was not observed here, most likely because of the
290 μm scintillator using a white reflective scintillator coating, which
Finally, we studied CMOS Sensor 3 equipped with CsI scintillators was shown above (Fig. 4(b)) to result in a much higher amount of
of different thicknesses (250 μm, 290 μm and 800 μm) using the same visible photons reaching the sensor surface. Since this also causes more
FOP (3 mm thickness, N.A of 1.00 and includes EMA fibres) in all light dispersion, it also explains why the MTF of the 290 μm scintillator
the cases. The 250 μm one used a flexible substrate CsI scintillator is closer to that of the 800 μm rather than the 250 μm one.
whereas the 290 μm and 800 μm were supported on an Al substrate. Fig. 11(a), (b) and (c) show the average NNPS curves for the three
Importantly, unlike the other two, the 290 μm scintillator used a white scintillator thicknesses and how these different combinations result in
coated substrate. The pMTF results are shown in Fig. 10(a). The general the sensor reaching quantum-limited behaviour at different Air Kerma
trend is a decrease in pMTF as the scintillator thickness increases, due levels. A comparison of the NNPS curves for the three scintillators at

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R.P. Alikunju, S. Kearney, R. Moss et al. Nuclear Inst. and Methods in Physics Research, A 1050 (2023) 168136

Fig. 9. DQE at 70 kV (RQA5) for (a) 50 μm pp sensor (b) 100 μm pp sensor. (c) comparison between the DQE of the 50 μm and 100 μm pp sensors at similar Air Kerma values.

Fig. 10. (a) pMTF comparison for different scintillator thicknesses. (b) STP curves of the sensors with displayed fitting equations for the different scintillator thicknesses.

closest matching Air Kerma values is shown in Fig. 11(d), which shows when drawing conclusions of this type it should be borne in mind
that the highest and lowest noise levels are observed for the 250 μm and that the detectors obtained through coupling with different scintillators
800 μm scintillators, respectively. Two Air Kerma values are reported reach quantum-limited behaviour at different Air Kerma values. A
for the 800 μm thick scintillator which ‘‘bracket’’ those used in the thicker scintillator also leads to an improved blocking of direct X-ray
250 μm and 290 μm cases, since a closer match was not available. hits in the sensor, which can also contribute to reducing noise.
Fig. 12(a), (b) and (c) show the DQE curves for the sensor coupled
to the 250 μm, 290 μm and 800 μm thick CsI scintillators (respectively). 4. Conclusion
The DQE at 0.1 lp/mm ranges from 0.48 to 0.54 (1.09–4.37 μGy Air
Kerma range), 0.53 to 0.61 (0.84–2.66 μGy Air Kerma range) and 0.64 The X-ray characterisation studies presented were aimed at under-
to 0.80 (0.29–2.33 μGy Air Kerma range) for the 250 μm, 290 μm and standing the trade-offs in terms of resolution, sensitivity, noise perfor-
800 μm thick scintillators, respectively. The 800 μm scintillator shows mance and detection efficiency obtained by varying specific detector
the highest DQE at low frequency due to its higher X-ray stopping parameters such as FOP, scintillator substrate coatings, pixel pitch, and
power and therefore higher conversion efficiency. scintillator thickness. A direct comparison among the evaluated pMTF,
Fig. 12(d) shows the DQE comparison for the 3 different CsI scin- STP, NPS, and DQE showed that:
tillators at the most similar Air Kerma values that were available (with
two values – 2.04 μGy and 2.33 μGy – for the 800 μm thick scintillator (i) The sensor without FOP had greater pMTF and sensitivity but a
for the reasons mentioned above). The 800 μm thick scintillator shows lower DQE compared to the ‘with FOP’ case.
the highest DQE at all spatial frequency for both the 2.04 μGy and 2.33 (ii) For scintillator coatings, the BCAl substrate had better pMTF
μGy, indicating that its better noise performance due to higher detec- performance, but the WCAl substrate yielded better sensitivity,
tion efficiency overcomes the reduction in spatial resolution. Again, noise performance, and detection efficiency.

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R.P. Alikunju, S. Kearney, R. Moss et al. Nuclear Inst. and Methods in Physics Research, A 1050 (2023) 168136

Fig. 11. 1D NNPS at different values of 𝐾a for the 250 μm (a), 290 μm (b) and 800 μm (c) thick CsI scintillators. (d) comparison between NNPS of different scintillators for similar
Air Kerma values.

Fig. 12. DQE at 70 kV (RQA5) for the 250 μm (a), 290 μm (b) and 800 μm (c) CsI scintillators. (d) comparison between the DQE of different scintillators for similar Air Kerma
values.

(iii) Detectors with 50 μm and 100 μm pixel pitches and a thick Based on these characterisation studies, specific X-ray applications
(784 μm) scintillator showed identical pMTF, but the 100 μm can be matched with different detector combinations. For instance,
case demonstrated higher sensitivity, noise performance, and computed tomography (CT) and dental applications demand low Air
DQE. Kerma, hence detector configurations with high DQE values are pre-
(iv) In terms of scintillator thicknesses, the thinnest scintillator ferred. High-resolution detectors with greater pMTFs are preferred for
(250 μm) had the highest pMTF, whereas the thickest (800 μm) industrial X-ray applications. Thus, this study can help researchers
had the highest sensitivity, noise performance, and DQE when and practitioners choose a detector configuration based on the specific
compared to other thin scintillators (250 μm and 290 μm). demands of their application.

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R.P. Alikunju, S. Kearney, R. Moss et al. Nuclear Inst. and Methods in Physics Research, A 1050 (2023) 168136

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