• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.28-31
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• 2002

The Cdl-xZnxTe film was fabricated by thermal evaporation for the flat-panel X-ray detector. The stoichimetric ratio and the crystal structure of a polycrystalline Cd$_{1-x}$ Zn$_{x}$Te were investigated by EPMA and XRD, respectively. The leakage current and X-ray sensitivity of the fabricated films were measured to analyze the X-ray response characteristic of Zn in the polycrystalline CdZnTe thin film. The leakage current and the output charge density of Cd$_{0.7}$Zn$_{0.3}$Te thin film were measured to 0.37 nA/cm$^2$ and 260 pc/cm$^2$ at an applied voltage of 2.5 V/${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$, respectively. Experimental results showed that the increase of Zn doping rates in Cd$_{1-x}$ Zn$_{x}$Te detectors reduced the leakage current and improved the signal to noise ratio significantly.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.50 no.5
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• pp.262-266
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• 2013

A new concept of periapical radiography, intra oral x-ray tube and detector system is introduced. It is new system that a miniature x-ray tube is inserted into mouse and it acquired digital image using external detector. In this study, we have investigated temperature and dose distribution of insertional x-ray tube for periapical radiography. To analyze temperature characteristic of x-ray tube, we attached the thermocouple to surface of x-ray tube and we measured the temperature according to distance. Also, we measured the dose distribution of a miniature x-ray tube according to distance. As a result, temperature was constant to $27^{\circ}C$ over 2mm without cooling system, dose distribution of x-ray tube was 3.14 and 1.84mGy in 3 and 5cm, respectively. Therefore, the proposed x-ray system works in lower dose than conventional dental x-ray system. Thus, it is considered that new concept of system will have a significant effect on medical imaging technology.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.95-101
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• 2007

Recently, small-animal imaging technology has been rapidly developed for longitudinal screening of laboratory animals such as mice and rats. One of newly developed imaging modalities for small animals is an x-ray micro-CT (computed tomography). We have developed two types of x-ray micro-CT systems for small animal imaging. Both systems use flat-panel x-ray detectors and micro-focus x-ray sources to obtain high spatial resolution of $10{\mu}m$. In spite of the relatively large field-of-view (FOV) of flat-panel detectors, the spatial resolution in the whole-body imaging of rats should be sacrificed down to the order of $100{\mu}m$ due to the limited number of x-ray detector pixels. Though the spatial resolution of cone-beam CTs can be improved by moving an object toward an x-ray source, the FOV should be reduced and the object size is also limited. To overcome the limitation of the object size and resolution, we introduce zoom-in micro-tomography for high-resolution imaging of a local region-of-interest (ROI) inside a large object. For zoom-in imaging, we use two kinds of projection data in combination, one from a full FOV scan of the whole object and the other from a limited FOV scan of the ROI. Both of our micro-CT systems have zoom-in micro-tomography capability. One of both is a micro-CT system with a fixed gantry mounted with an x-ray source and a detector. An imaged object is laid on a rotating table between a source and a detector. The other micro-CT system has a rotating gantry with a fixed object table, which makes whole scans without rotating an object. In this paper, we report the results of in vivo small animal study using the developed micro-CTs.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.388-391
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• 2003

The properties of these detectors can be controlled by electronics and exposure conditions. Flat-panel detectors for digital diagnostic imaging convert incident x-ray images to charge images. Flat panel detectors gain more interest real time medical x-ray imaging. Active area of flat panel detector is $14{\times}17$ inch. Detector is based on a $2560{\times}3072$ away of photoconductor and TFT pixels. X-ray conversion layer is deposited upper TFT array flat panel with a 500m by thermal deposition technology. Thickness uniformity of this layer is made of thickness control technology(5%) of thermal deposition system. Each $139m{\times}139m$ pixel is made of thin film transistor technology, a storage capacitor and charge collection electrode having geometrical fill factor of 86%. Using the separate driving system of two dimensional mosaic modules for large area, that is able to 4.2 second per frame. Imaging performance is suited for digital radiography imaging substitute by conventional radiography film system..

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.465-471
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• 2021

Dual-energy X-ray imaging (DEI) techniques can provide X-ray images that a certain material is suppressed or emphasized by combining two X-ray images obtained from two different x-ray spectrum. In this paper, a single-shot DEI, which uses stacked two detectors (i.e., multilayer detector), is proposed to reduce the patient dose and increase throughput in angiography. The polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) and aluminum (Al) were selected as two basis materials for material decomposition, and material-specific images are reconstructed as a vector combination of these two materials. We investigate the contrast and noise performance of material-decomposed images using iodine phantoms with various concentrations and diameters. The single-shot DEI shows comparable performances to the conventional dual-shot DEI. In particular, the single-shot DEI shows edge enhancement in material-decomposed images due to the different spatial-resolution characteristics of upper and lower detectors. This study could be useful for designing the multilayer detector including scintillators and energy-separation filter for angiography purposes.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.9
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• pp.3380-3389
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• 2022

We evaluated the performance of an improved hybrid median filter (IHMF) applied to X-ray computed tomography (CT) images obtained using a high-resolution photon-counting cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) detector. To study how the proposed approach improves the image quality, we measured the noise levels and the overall CT-image quality. We established a CZT imaging system with a detector length of 5.12 cm and thickness of 0.3 cm and acquired phantom images. To evaluate the efficacy of the proposed filter, we first modeled two conventional median filters. Subsequently, we were able to achieve a normalized noise power spectrum result of ~10^-8 mm², and furthermore, the proposed method improved the contrast-to-noise ratio by a factor of ~1.51 and the coefficient of variation by 1.55 relative to the counterpart values of the no-filter image. In addition, the IHMF exhibited the best performance among the three filters considered as regards the peak signal-to-noise ratio and no-reference-based image-quality evaluation parameters. Thus, our results demonstrate that the IHMF approach provides a superior image performance over conventional median filtering methods when applied to actual CZT X-ray CT images.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.6
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• pp.2057-2062
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• 2024

Among photon counting detector (PCD)-based technologies, the K-edge subtraction (KES) method has a very high material decomposition efficiency. Yet, since the increase in noise in the X-ray image to which the KES method is applied is inevitable, research on image quality improvement is essential. Here, we modeled a block-matching and 3D filtering (BM3D) algorithm and applied it to PCD-based X-ray images with the improved KES (IKES) method. For PCD modeling, Monte Carlo simulation was used, and a phantom composed of iodine substances with different concentrations was designed. The IKES method was modeled by adding a log term to KES, and the X-ray image used for subtraction was obtained by applying the 3.0 keV range based on the K-edge region of iodine. As a result, the IKES image using the BM3D algorithm showed the lowest normalized noise power spectrum value. In addition, we confirmed that the contrast-to-noise ratio and no-reference-based evaluation results when the BM3D algorithm was applied to the IKES image were improved by 29.36 % and 20.56 %, respectively, compared to the noisy image. In conclusion, we demonstrated that the IKES imaging technique using a PCD-based detector and the BM3D algorithm fusion technique were very efficient for X-ray imaging.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.29 no.11 s.242
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• pp.1182-1188
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• 2005

An x-ray PIV (Particle Image Velocimetry) technique was developed to measure quantitative information on flows inside opaque conduits and on opaque-fluid flows. At first, the developed x-ray PIV technique was applied to flow in an opaque Teflon tube. To acquire x-ray images suitable for PIV velocity field measurements, refraction-based edge enhancement mechanism was employed using detectable tracer particles. The optimal distance between with the sample and detector was experimentally determined. The resulting amassed velocity field data were in reasonable agreement with the theoretical prediction. The x-ray PIV technique was also applied to blood flow in a microchannel. The flow pattern of blood was visualifed by enhancing the diffraction/interference -bas ed characteristic s of blood cells on synchrotron x-rays without any contrast agent or tracer particles. That is, the flow-pattern image of blood was achieved by optimizing the sample (blood) to detector distance and the sample thickness. Quantitative velocity field information was obtained by applying PIV algorithm to the enhanced x-ray flow images. The measured velocity field data show a typical flow structure of flow in a macro-scale channel.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2004.04b
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• pp.77-80
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• 2004

In this study, the purpose is to verified the feasibility to develope Hybrid x-ray detector in order to resolve problems of direct and indirect x-ray detectors. The properties of X-ray detector depend on absorption of X-ray, charge generation by x-ray photon, leakage current. In this study, CdS was used as photoconductor, and $Y_2O_2S:Tb$ as x-ray phosphor was formed on CdS in order to embody Hybrid structure. And Screen printing was used to form Muli-layer. Characteristics of this specimen were analyzed by using SEM, and XRD. And Photoluminescence spectrum of $Y_2O_2S:Tb$, leakage current, with respect to applied voltages, output charge with respect to applied voltages, and X-ray sensitivity were measured. Also, linearity with respect to dose was measured. Leakage current was similar with direct digital x-ray detector, but sensitivity of the hybrid structure is much better than the single-layer structure.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.43-47
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• 2005

We have developed a small bore x-ray CT for small animal imaging with a linear x-ray detector array and small-scale slip rings. The linear x-ray detector array consists of 1024 elements of 400□m×400□m with a gadolinium oxysulfide (GOS) scintillator on top of them. To avoid use of expensive large diameter slip rings for projection data transmission from the X­ray detector to the image reconstruction system, we used the wireless LAN technology. The projection data are temporally stored in the data acquisition system residing on the rotating gantry during the scan and they are transmitted to the image reconstruction system after the scan. With the wireless LAN technology, we only needed to use small-scale slip rings to deliver the AC electric power to the X-ray generator and the power supply on the rotating gantry. The performances of the small animal CT system, such as SNR, contrast, and spatial resolution, have been evaluated through experiments using various phantoms. It has been experimentally found that the SNR is almost linearly proportional to the tube current and tube voltage, and the minimum resolvable contrast is less than 30 CT numbers at 40kVp/3.0㎃. The spatial resolution of the small animal CT system has been found to be about 0.9Ip/㎜. Postmortem images of a piglet is also presented.