Characterization of photon counting detectors for X-ray diffraction (XRD) applications

Photon counting detectors with energy resolving capabilities have the potential to improve computed tomography (CT) imaging and x-ray diffraction (XRD) systems. In order to better understand the use of these detectors in the CT and XRD application spaces, we have experimentally investigated the detector performance of two newly-released photon counting detectors: the Redlen LDA detector and the Kromek D-Matrix v2 detector. Detector performance involves a complicated interplay of semiconductor physics and readout electronics, and the outcome can depend crucially on the properties of the incoming X-rays-specifically the flux and spectral content. Although the LDA and D-Matrix v2 detectors differ in many ways, particularly in the manner in which they collect spectroscopic information, both are of interest for CT and XRD modalities. We report on our analysis of the detector performance, including the noise statistics, detector quantum efficiency, response linearity, and energy resolution of the detectors as well as discuss how our findings influence the use of these detectors in diffraction and transmission measurements.