A new cross-detection method for improved energy-resolving photon counting under pulse pile-up

In recent, photon counting detectors (PCDs) have been replacing the energy-integrating detectors in many medical imaging applications due to the formers' high resolution, low noise, and high efficiency. Under a high flux X-ray exposure, however, a superimposition of pulses, i.e., pulse pile-up, frequently occurs due to the finite output pulse width, causing distortions in the energy spectrum as a consequence. Therefore, pulse pile-up is considered as a major constraint in using PCDs for high flux X-ray applications. In this study, a new photon counting method is proposed to minimize degradations in PCD performance due to pulse pile-up. The proposed circuit was incorporated into a pixel with a size of 200×200μm2. It was fabricated by using a 1-poly 6-metal 0.18μm complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) process and had a power consumption of 7.8μW∕pixel. From the result, it was shown that the maximum count rate of the proposed circuit was increased by a factor of 4.7 when compared to that of the conventional circuit at the same pulse width of 700 ns. This implies that the energy spectrum obtained by the proposed circuit is 4.7 times more resistant to distortions than the conventional energy-resolving circuit does under higher X-ray fluxes.