Proceedings Article | 5 October 2015
Abhishek Kumar, Date Moet, Jan Laurens van der Steen, Albert van Breemen, Santhosh Shanmugam, Jan Gilot, Ronn Andriessen, Matthias Simon, Walter Ruetten, Alexander Douglas, Rob Raaijmakers, Pawel Malinowski, Kris Myny, Gerwin Gelinck
KEYWORDS: Photodiodes, Sensors, X-ray imaging, Image sensors, Sensor performance, Medicine, Electronics, Applied physics, Photovoltaics, Coating
High performance X-ray imaging detectors on foil using solution-processed organic photodiodes with extremely low dark leakage current
Abhishek Kumara, Date Moeta, Albert van Breemena, Santhosh Shanmugama, Jan-Laurens van der Steena, Jan Gilota, Ronn Andriessena, Matthias Simonb, Walter Ruettenb, Alexander U. Douglasb, Rob Raaijmakersc, Pawel E. Malinowskid, Kris Mynyd and Gerwin H. Gelincka,e
a. Holst Centre/TNO, High Tech Campus 31, Eindhoven 5656 AE, The Netherlands
b. Philips Research, High Tech Campus 34, 5656 AE Eindhoven, The Netherlands
c. Philips Healthcare, Veenpluis 6-8, 5684 PC Best, The Netherlands
d. Department of Large Area Electronics, imec vzw, Kapeldreef 75, Leuven B3001, Belgium
e. Applied Physics Department, TU Eindhoven, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
We demonstrate high performance X-ray imaging detectors on foil suitable for medical grade X-ray imaging applications. The detectors are based on solution-processed organic photodiodes forming bulk-heterojunctions from photovoltaic donor and acceptor blend. The organic photodiodes are deposited using an industrially compatible slot die coating technique with end of line processing temperature below 100°C. These photodiodes have extremely low dark leakage current density of 10-7 mA/cm2 at -2V bias with very high yield and have peak absorption around 550 nm wavelength. We combine these organic photodiodes with high mobility metal oxide semiconductor based thin film transistor arrays with high pixel resolution of 200ppi on thin plastic substrate. When combined with a typical CsI(TI) scintillator material on top, they are well suited for low dose X-ray imaging applications. The optical crosstalk is insignificant upto resolution of 200 ppi despite the fact that the photodiode layer is one continuous layer and is non-pixelated. Low processing temperatures are another key advantage since they can be fabricated on plastic substrate. This implies that we can make X-ray detectors on flexible foil. Those detectors can be mechanically more robust and light weight when compared to amorphous Si based detectors fabricated on glass substrate.
