Ultra Fast Hyperspectral X-Ray Imaging System

"X-ray imaging has become an essential tool in many military, industrial and medical applications. A new advanced photon counting type x-ray imaging system was proposed for Phase I because it combines the geometrical volume information obtained in theimaging process with spectral information obtained by measuring the attenuation of the x-rays at different energies. This provides the user with a wealth of data that can be used in many diverse applications. X-ray imaging also needs very fast dataacquisition capability so that high-resolution images can be obtained quickly, which is essential for real-time NDI and NDE applications. To achieve these goals major development efforts in two areas were needed. The first effort was to develop highenergy resolution, room temperature, high atomic number (Z) linear pixel detector arrays which will work without polarization at high x-ray fluxes. The second was to develop an ultra fast mixed signal front end data acquisition ASIC (Application SpecificIntegrated Circuit) to read out the pixel detector array. Although only a feasibility study was intended during Phase I to study these issues, a breakthrough in detector development was achieved. Therefore, high-quality solid-state pixel detector arrayshave already been developed. During Phase II we plan to improve the uniformity of the pixel detector arrays. However, the main thrust of the Phase II work will be to develop the ultra fast mixed sig