APPLICATION OF A PLASTIC SCINTILLATING-FIBER ARRAY FOR LOW-ENERGY X-RAY-IMAGING

Interest in digital imaging has led to the development of new detector s in the form of large-area displays. Most of the recent improvements are based on charge-coupled devices, a:Si photodiodes arrays, and so o n. Some of these photodetectors must be coupled to scintillating scree ns to convert the ionizing radiation into Light. Fiber-optic screens o ffer an advantage for achieving this interface because the length (thi ckness) of the interaction medium does not contribute too much to the degradation of the spatial resolution. We discuss the possibility of u sing a plastic scintillating fiber (PSF) array for x-ray detection and imaging in the 10-keV range. Modulation-transfer-function (MTF) measu rements of the PSF array are compared with the optics MTF of the imagi ng system (without the sample); cross talk in the fiber array is negli gible, even though the fiber array thickness is 20 mm. The optimal thi ckness of the array is estimated experimentally. (C) 1998 Optical Soci ety of America.