Digital X-ray imaging using silicon microstrip detectors: a design study

This paper considers the basic design parameters for using silicon microstrip detectors for 2-D medical imaging. In particular, mammographic and dental imaging are considered. Monte Carlo modeling techniques have been used to investigate detector efficiency, strip pitch, image quality, imaging geometry and signal processing requirements. Different phantoms are used for each part of the study. It is shown that signal processing times are a major factor in the operation of a clinical detector system if ambiguities are to be avoided in a double-sided strip detector. However, the use of the models allows conclusions to be made that alleviate the timing requirements. It has been shown that using a strip structure of 50–100 μm provides appropriate image resolution and image quality can be maintained with pixel counts of 50–100 in both dental and mammographic work. Under these conditions current front-end electronics designs can provide the signal processing times with an acceptably small number of multihit events (<5%).