ABSTRACT
A variety of engineering tradeoffs exist in the design of photon-counting detectors for CT systems. In this chapter, we relate performance metrics from the detector to performance metrics of the larger CT system, and we explore how these tradeoffs can be mediated through proper selection of detector parameters. For example, increasing the pixel size reduces the frequency of charge sharing but increases the frequency of pileup, leading to better low contrast detectability for spectral tasks in most conditions but poorer robustness to high count rates. Other parameters such as pulse shaping time and detector thickness are also described. We conclude with a discussion of upcoming technologies, including dynamic bowtie filters, charge sharing compensation, and improved filtration that can improve photon-counting detector performance in multiple different ways.
