Experimental simulation of a spectroscopic pixel X-ray detector

For reasons such as dose reduction and image quality improvement Energy Weighting is a very interesting field of research [1] [Giersch et al., Nucl. Instr. and Meth. A 531 (2004) 68]. In order to point out the potential benefit of this method, we developed an experimental set-up: The components are a CdZnTe single pixel detector, collimator, low-noise preamplifier, amplifier, analog-to-digital converter and data acquisition software. With this detector set-up and an X-ray tube with a molybdenum anode, we obtained data which emphasise the advantages of Energy Weighting in X-ray imaging. e purpose of utilising the Energy Weighting technique in X-ray imaging, it is necessary to detect the position and energy of each photon. Due to the fact that our detector is only a single pixel detector, we emulated several pixels by translation of the object. The same spectroscopic pixel detector was also simulated with the Monte Carlo software tool ROSI [2] [Giersch et al., Nucl. Instr. and Meth. A 509 (2003) 151]. imulation and measurement indicate that the concept of Energy Weighting enhances the quality of X-ray imaging at constant dose.