Reducing trap effects in a scintillator by application of secondary radiation

Abstract

According to an embodiment of the invention, a radiation detector device (10) for detecting a primary radiation (6) comprises a scintillator (12) which generates a converted primary radiation in response to incoming primary radiation (6) and a photo detector (14) for detecting the converted primary radiation. The radiation detector device (10) further comprises a secondary radiation source (20) for irradiating the scintillator (12) with a secondary radiation (22) which has a wavelength different from a wavelength of the first radiation (6) and which is capable of producing a spatially more uniform response of the scintillator (12) to primary radiation. In an embodiment of the invention, the radiation detector device (10) is an X-ray detector of an X-ray imaging apparatus where the primary radiation is X-ray radiation and the secondary radiation has a wavelength between 350 nm and 450 nm. According to an embodiment, the irradiation with the secondary radiation, e.g. UV radiation, produces a uniform gain distribution of the X-ray detector (10).

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.