Performance of photon-counting and energy-integrating semiconductor detectors for digital breast tomosynthesis

Direct conversion detectors are increasingly used in digital mammography. Investigation of new breast imaging techniques such as digital breast tomosynthesis that provide information in three dimensions has thus been made possible. Amorphous Selenium is currently the most common direct converting digital detector material The prospect of optimum energy weighting and photon counting to improve detector performance probed the investigation of other materials for digital imaging. In the current study, the performance of a-Se, HgI₂, CdZnTe and TIBr is assessed through Monte Carlo simulations using GATE and MTF, DQE and NPS as figures of merit. The outcome would provide a favorable material for potential use in a DBT system.