Prototype of Flexible Digital X-Ray Imaging Detector

This letter presents the development of a flexible digital X-ray imaging detector based on flat panel display manufacturing principles. The detector array was fabricated using amorphous silicon thin-film transistors (a-Si TFTs) on flexible polyimide (PI) substrate. The TFT characteristics of the flexible detector array show comparable performance to the glass substrate detector array. The field effect mobility (<inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu $ </tex-math></inline-formula>) of a-Si TFT on flexible substrate was 0.66 cm2/V<inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\cdot $ </tex-math></inline-formula>s, the thresholder voltage (VT) was 4.21 V, the subthreshold slops (SS) was 0.42 V/decade, and the off-current (IOFF) was about <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$6.5\times 10^{-{14}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> A. The X-ray image was 161 mm <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\times$ </tex-math></inline-formula> 215 mm in size. The environmental reliability of the flexible detector were tested using thermal and conditions of 65°C at a relative humidity (RH) of 70%. Furthermore, temperature cycling between −20°C/+60°C was used to test the flexible detectors and which also shown acceptable passing results for commercialization. The preliminary studying results demonstrate the feasibility of a flexible X-ray imaging detector, which could have significant implications for the medical imaging industry.