Frugal X-rays may have received a long overdue upgrade thanks to the development of highly sensitive and printable X-ray detectors that can operate over a wide range of energy levels.
X-rays are high-energy photons of short wavelength and very high frequency that have been used as a medical diagnostic tool since 1896. X-rays are usually described by their maximum energy determined by the voltage across the electrodes.
The energy carried by radiation is converted into visual or electronic form by an X-ray detector. Most of them operate in one of his two energy levels, hard or soft. Those with high photon energies above 5 to 10 kiloelectronvolts (keV) are called “hard x-rays” and are widely used in medical radiology because they can penetrate dense materials like bone. “Soft X-rays” typically have energy levels below 1 keV and are used for imaging living organisms such as tissues and cells.
X-ray detectors may need to operate at both energy levels, such as when searching for tumors in breast tissue. Existing detectors made of silicon and selenium can operate with hard and soft windows, but have limited energy sensitivity and spatial resolution (the ability to distinguish between two nearby objects).
A team led by researchers from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, has developed a highly sensitive, multi-energy X-ray detector using techniques commonly associated with next-generation solar-powered devices. Researchers have discovered that metal halide perovskites are an effective and versatile alternative to silicon and selenium because they can control the intensity of X-ray beams passing through the material, a process called X-ray attenuation. Did.
Perovskite is a natural mineral with the same crystal structure as titanium calcium oxide. Previously used in studies limited to small-scale hard X-ray detection, this is the first time perovskite has been used to test soft X-ray detection.
In the current study, researchers created an X-ray detector by printing a thin film of perovskite inside a diode device. They found that perovskite-based detectors operate over a wide energy range from 0.1 keV to tens of keV. This is much wider than existing multi-energy X-ray detectors.
Since the detector is made as a thin film, it can be combined with a flexible substrate to produce a wide variety of device shapes and sizes. Flexible X-ray detectors can be used to conform to rounded body parts or molded to fit in limited spaces.
“This study shows that there is a natural extension of perovskite to printed X-ray detectors,” said Jacek Jasieniak, corresponding author of the study. “They should be cheaper to manufacture, and may also include modified film form factors if inherent flexibility is desired.”
Researchers anticipate a wide range of real-world uses for these newly developed X-ray detectors.
“These perovskite-based detectors offer rapid response times and offer high sensitivity to enable real-time detection and imaging for complex purposes such as disease diagnosis, explosives detection, and food contamination identification. We can do that,” said Babar Shabbir, lead author of the study.
The study was published in a journal advanced materials.
Source: Exciton Science
