Imaging performance of a DEPFET pixel Bioscope system in Tritium autoradiography

A Bioscope system based on a 64 × 64 -matrix of DEPFET pixels has been developed for real-time digital autoradiography in biomedical applications. It provides very good energy and spatial resolution at the same time. The DEPFET pixel cells consist of p -channel JFETs integrated into the high-ohmic n -silicon substrate. This leads to a very low noise performance at room temperature. Two dedicated ASIC chips have been developed for steering and readout of the pixel matrix. The measured system noise of ( 69 ± 4 ) e - at 35 ∘ C is mostly due to sensor leakage current and can be largely reduced by cooling or a faster readout. The spatial resolution is examined by measurements with a laser as well as with a dedicated test chart and is determined to be ( 6.7 ± 0.7 ) μ m for 6 keV-X-rays and 4.3 ± 0.8 μ m for 22 keV-X-rays. The measurements are compared to simulation results with different reconstruction algorithms. Due to the thin entrance window at the detector backside and the low noise performance, a detection of low-energy β -emitters such as 3H is possible. Measurements with 3H-labeled biological samples were taken. The ability of the DEPFET pixel Bioscope to separate different radiolabels in the same sample is demonstrated by a measurement with 3H and 14C.