Scientists create CMOS sensors to capture X-rays

At 12.8 cm² it offers increased sensitivity and dynamic range, as well as reduced noise and could, therefore, potentially improve medical imaging such as cancer screening.

Conventional radiation imaging, including X-ray mammography, requires film plates which the radiographer removes and examines.

In recent years there has been increased use of digital radiography, which uses amorphous silicon panels rather than film. While offering advantages in terms of record keeping, it has not been shown to be significantly better than conventional film imaging in terms of resolving power.

Now researchers at Lincoln University have developed a device termed DynAMITe that uses a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) sensor with a scintillator to convert the X-ray/gamma rays into visible light.

DynAMITe can be doubled up to give a total area of 25.6 cm² so it can cover whole body areas such as the chest without the need for lenses to focus the image on the detector.

‘If you put light through a lens system you lose a lot, it’s very inefficient — in a typical lens system only a few per cent of the photons will actually get through, so it becomes less sensitive,’ Prof Nigel Allinson of Lincoln told The Engineer.