Physical aspects of detector design

A new generation of digital radiation detectors is described which is based on solid state technology. The detector front-end consists of two stages, the conversion and the readout part. For the conversion stage there are two different concepts: direct conversion using heavy semiconductor layers, or indirect conversion by combination of scintillators and photodiodes. The r eadout stage is based on amorphous silicon large-area technology and charge sensitive readout amplifiers. In this paper the properties of different de tector materials, system aspects of detector design, and the impact of phys ical properties on image quality are discussed. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science L td. All rights reserved.