Application of Controlled-Drift Detectors in Diffraction Enhanced Imaging of Tissues

Diffraction enhanced breast imaging (DEBI) could potentially give a significant increase in sensitivity and specificity compared to conventional transmission X-ray mammography. A device that may be promising for this application area is the controlled drift detector (CDD). The CDDs feature a small pixel size, similar to charge coupled devices, but are superior to charge coupled devices in certain key areas: (a) they can operate in photon counting mode measuring the energy with spectroscopic resolution; (b) very high frame rates are possible (up to 100 kHz); and (c) they can potentially be constructed to large area linear devices. The results of the first performance evaluation of the CDD in its application to DEBI are presented and discussed.