Third-generation computed tomography with energy information of X-rays using a CdTe flat panel detector

The present authors developed the transXend detector, which measures incident X-rays as current and also gives their energy distribution after an unfolding process with using previously obtained response functions. This detector enables X-ray energy-resolved computed tomography (CT). To incorporate the transXend detector into a third-generation CT scanner, a flat panel detector (FPD) made of CdTe pixels is employed with placing a variable number of aluminum absorbers in front of the FPD. Although changing the number of absorbers can be time consuming, the time necessary to generate a CT image is much less when compared with image acquisition by first-generation CT.