An investigation of performance characteristics of a pixellated room-temperature semiconductor detector for medical imaging

The operation of any semiconductor detector depends on the movement of the charge carriers, which are created within the material when radiation passes through, as a result of energy deposition. The carrier movement in the bulk semiconductor induces charges on the metal electrodes, and therefore a current on the electrodes and the external circuit. The induced charge strongly depends on the material transport parameters as well as the geometrical dimensions of a pixellated semiconductor detector. This work focuses on the performance optimization in terms of energy resolution, detection efficiency and intrinsic spatial resolution of a room-temperature semiconductor pixellated detector based on CdTe/CdZnTe. It analyses and inter-relates these performance figures for various dimensions of CdTe and CdZnTe detectors and for an energy range spanning from x-ray (25 keV) to PET (511 keV) imaging. Monte Carlo simulations, which integrate a detailed and accurate noise model, are carried out to investigate several CdTe/CdZnTe configurations and to determine possible design specifications. Under the considered conditions, the simulations demonstrate the superiority of the CdZnTe over the CdTe in terms of energy resolution and sensitivity in the photopeak. Further, according to the results, the spatial resolution is maximized at high energies and the energy resolution at low energies, while a reasonable detection efficiency is achieved at high energies, with a 1 x 1 x 6 mm(3) CdZnTe pixellated detector.