Large Field of View XRD Imaging Detector System for Screening Baggage at Airports

Material determination using XRD technique with a poly-energetic x-ray beam (energy dispersive XRD or EDXRD) requires good energy resolution (~30%@ 60 keV or about 2 keV).In order to scan luggage using XRD, additional requirements are: a very large detector area, sufficient spatial resolution, and sufficient dynamic range. These properties within the detector would be sufficient for XRD imaging. However, there are two other limiting factors important to enable widespread use of XRD screening technology, namely cost and throughput. We present here results from the development of low-cost large-area room-temperature semiconductor detectors which have good energy resolution and can operate at high output count rates (OCR) for use with recently-developed coded aperature collimators to produce higher throughput.