X-ray imaging bilinear staggered GaAs detectors

The multichannel bilinear X-ray detector based on epitaxial GaAs structures is developed to obtain a digital X-ray image. Each detector operates in photovoltaic mode without reverse bias that enables almost complete elimination of detector noise arising due to leakage currents. The sensitivity range of the epitaxial GaAs photovoltaic X-ray detector covers the effective energies from 8 to 120 keV. A maximum response of the detector operating in the short-circuit mode was observed at an energy of 35 keV and amounted to 30 μA min/(Gy cm2). The multichannel detector was made of 1024 pixels with pitch of 0.8 mm. The spatial resolution of double staggered sensor row is twice as high as the resolution of that of single sensor row with the same pitch. Measured spatial resolution is 1.2 line-pairs/mm, contrast sensitivity not worse 1% and dynamic range defined as the ratio of maximum detectable X-ray signal to electronic noise level more than 2000 are received.