High sensitivity organic inorganic hybrid X-ray detectors with direct transduction and broadband response.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 30050037.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-018-05301-6 and PMC identifier 6062530.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
X-ray detectors are critical to healthcare diagnostics, cancer therapy and homeland security, with many potential uses limited by system cost and/or detector dimensions. Current X-ray detector sensitivities are limited by the bulk X-ray attenuation of the materials and consequently necessitate thick crystals (~1 mm-1 cm), resulting in rigid structures, high operational voltages and high cost. Here we present a disruptive, flexible, low cost, broadband, and high sensitivity direct X-ray transduction technology produced by embedding high atomic number bismuth oxide nanoparticles in an organic bulk heterojunction. These hybrid detectors demonstrate sensitivities of 1712 µC mGy<sup>-1</sup> cm<sup>-3</sup> for "soft" X-rays and ~30 and 58 µC mGy<sup>-1</sup> cm<sup>-3</sup> under 6 and 15 MV "hard" X-rays generated from a medical linear accelerator; strongly competing with the current solid state detectors, all achieved at low bias voltages (-10 V) and low power, enabling detector operation powered by coin cell batteries.