Theoretical analysis of the effect of charge-sharing on the Detective Quantum Efficiency of single-photon counting segmented silicon detectors

A detector cascaded model is proposed to describe charge-sharing effect in single-photon counting segmented silicon detectors. Linear system theory is applied to this cascaded model in order to derive detector performance parameters such as large-area gain, presampling Modulation Transfer Function (MTF), Noise Power Spectrum (NPS) and Detective Quantum Efficiency (DQE) as a function of energy detection threshold. This theory is used to model one-dimensional detectors (i.e. strip detectors) where X-ray-generated charge can be shared between two sampling elements, but the concepts developed in this article can be generalized to two-dimensional arrays of detecting elements (i.e. pixels detectors). The zero-frequency DQE derived from this model is consistent with expressions reported in the literature using a different method. The ability of this model to simulate the effect of charge sharing on image quality in the spatial frequency domain is demonstrated by applying it to a hypothetical one-dimensional single-photon counting detector illuminated with a typical mammography spectrum.