Prismatic Sensors Ab

Ge Precision Healthcare LLC

Hans Bornefalk

Mats Danielsson

Torbjörn Hjärn

Mats Persson

Martin Sjölin

Fredrik Gronberg

Fredrik Grönberg

Xuejin Liu

Christer Svensson

Ben Huber

Han Chen

There is provided an edge-on x-ray detector configured for detecting incoming x-rays. The edge-on x-ray detector includes a plurality of adjacent x-ray sensors, and each x-ray sensor is oriented edge-on to incoming x-rays. The x-ray sensors are arranged side-by-side and/or lined up one after the other, and the interspacing between the x-ray sensors is at least partly filled with a gap filling material including a mixture or compound of resin and metal disulfide.

Edge-on x-ray detector

Disclosed is a calibration phantom for an x-ray imaging system having an x-ray source and an x-ray detector. The calibration phantom includes a combination of geometric objects of at least three different types and/or compositions including: a first object located in the middle, including a first material; a plurality of second objects arranged around the periphery of the first object, at least a subset of the second objects including a second material different than the first material, wherein the first object is relatively larger than the second objects; a plurality of third objects arranged around the periphery of the first object and/or around the periphery of at least a subset of the second objects, at least a subset of the third objects including a third material different than the first material and the second material, wherein the third objects are relatively smaller than the second objects.

Calibration of an x-ray imaging system

An x-ray imaging apparatus includes an x-ray source and detector with multiple detector elements. The source and detector are on a support that rotates around a subject, enabling projections at different view angles. The apparatus operates the x-ray source in switched kVp mode for alternately applying different voltages, including lower and higher voltages, during rotation to enable lower-energy and higher-energy exposures over the projections, providing for lower-energy projections and higher-energy projections. The x-ray detector is a photon-counting multi-bin detector allocating photon counts to multiple energy bins, and the apparatus selects counts from at least a subset of the bins to provide corresponding photon count information for both lower- and higher-energy projections. The apparatus performs material basis decomposition for some of the lower-energy projections and higher-energy projections and/or for some combinations of at least one lower-energy projection and at least one higher-energy projection, based on the corresponding photon count information.

Enhanced spectral x-ray imaging

Edge-on X-ray detector

There is provided a method of image reconstruction based on energy-resolved image data from a photon-counting multi-bin detector or an intermediate storage. The method includes processing (S1) the energy-resolved image data by performing at least two separate basis decompositions using different number of basis functions for modeling linear attenuation, wherein a first basis decomposition is performed using a first smaller set of basis functions to obtain at least one first basis image representation, and wherein a second basis decomposition is performed using a second larger set of basis functions to obtain at least one second basis image representation. The method also includes reconstructing a first image based on the at least one first basis image representation obtained from the first basis decomposition, and combining the first image with information representative of the at least one second basis image representation.

Image reconstruction based on energy-resolved image data from a photon-counting multi-bin detector

There is provided a method of image reconstruction based on energy-resolved image data from a photon-counting multi-bin detector or an intermediate storage. The method comprises processing (S) the energy-resolved image data by performing at least two separate basis decompositions using different number of basis functions for modeling linear attenuation, wherein a first basis decomposition is performed using a first smaller set of basis functions to obtain at least one first basis image representation, and wherein a second basis decomposition is performed using a second larger set of basis functions to obtain at least one second basis image representation. The method also comprises reconstructing a first image based on said at least one first basis image representation obtained from the first basis decomposition, and combining the first image with information representative of said at least one second basis image representation.

There is provided a method and corresponding system and apparatus for image reconstruction based on image data from a photon-counting multi-bin x-ray detector. The method includes determining (S) parameter(s) of a given functional form of the relationship between comparator settings expressed in voltage in the read-out chain of the x-ray detector and the corresponding energy threshold values expressed in energy based on a fitting procedure between a first set of data representative of a measured pulse height spectrum and a second set of data representative of a reference pulse height spectrum. The method also includes performing (S) image reconstruction based on the image data and the determined parameter(s). In this way, efficient high-quality image reconstruction can be achieved.

X-ray imaging based on image data from a photon-counting multi-bin X-ray detector

The current invention applies to photon counting silicon x-ray detectors with energy discriminating capabilities and applications in x-ray imaging systems. The overall image quality produced by such a system is improved by the presented novel methods for optimally using the energy information in Compton events and making selective use of counts induced from charges collected in neighboring pixels. The pile-up problem during high-flux imaging regimes is reduced by a novel method for signal reset, which improves the count efficiency by reducing the risk of losing event due to signal pile-up in the read out electronics chain.

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Vallentuna, Sweden

Hans Bornefalk