Few-photon computed x-ray imaging

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel low-photon-count x-ray imaging method using photon counting detectors that record individual photon timestamps, enabling dose-efficient imaging with very few photons per measurement.

Contribution

It presents a new photon-counting scheme based on negative binomial distribution for x-ray imaging, demonstrating effective reconstruction with as few as 10 photons.

Findings

Successful reconstruction from approximately 10 photons per measurement

Potential for dose reduction in x-ray imaging systems

Demonstrated feasibility of low-photon-count tomography

Abstract

X-ray is a ubiquitous imaging modality in clinical diagnostics and industrial inspections, thanks to its high penetration power. Conventional x-ray imaging system, equipped with energy-integrating detectors, collects approximately 1000 to 10000 counts per pixel to ensure sufficient signal to noise ratio (SNR). The recent development of energy sensitive photon counting detectors opens new possibilities for x-ray imaging at low photon flux. In this letter, we report a novel photon-counting scheme that records the time stamp of individual photons, which follows a negative binomial distribution, and demonstrated the reconstruction based on the few-photon statistics. The projection and tomography reconstruction from measurements of roughly 10 photons shows the potential of using photon counting detectors for dose-efficient x-ray imaging systems.