US 2017/0322322 A1 · HYBRID ENERGY CONVERSION AND PROCESSING DETECTOR

Abstract

A hybrid arrangement of more than one electron energy conversion mechanism in an electron detector is arranged such that an image can be acquired from both energy converters so that selected high-illumination parts of the electron beam can be imaged with an indirectly coupled scintillator detector and the remainder of the image acquired with the high-sensitivity/direct electron portion of the detector without readjustments in the beam position or mechanical positioning of the detector parts. Further, a mechanism is described to allow dynamically switchable or simultaneous linear and counted signal processing from each pixel on the detector so that high-illumination areas can be acquired linearly without severe dose rate limitation of counting and low-illumination regions can be acquired with counting.

Claims14

Dependent claims

A hybrid processing directly illuminated two-dimensional detector (HPDD) comprising:

a processor configured to:
simultaneously perform linear read-out and event-counting read-out of at least a portion of pixels in an array,
wherein when performing the event-counting readout, the processor is configured to identify a centroid with respect to event energy associated with a pixel and adjacent pixels.

A hybrid energy-conversion detector (HECD) for receiving a beam of electron radiation having predetermined high and low illumination intensity portions, the detector comprising:

an energy converting scintillator exposed to the high illumination intensity portion of the beam of electron radiation, said scintillator generating light from said high illumination intensity portion of the beam of electron radiation;
an image sensor that includes:
a first image sensor portion arranged and adapted for receiving said light from said energy converting scintillator and for processing a first image portion;
and
a second image sensor portion arranged and adapted for directly receiving the low illumination intensity portion of the beam of electron radiation and for processing a second image portion,
wherein said scintillator is exposed to the high illumination intensity portion of the beam of electron radiation,
wherein said second sensor portion is exposed to said low intensity portion of the beam of electron radiation,
wherein said exposure of said first image sensor portion to said light and said exposure of said second sensor portion to the low illumination intensity portion of the beam of electron radiation occurs at least in part simultaneously;
and
a processor configured to perform a linear read-out and an event-counting read-out of at least a portion of pixels in the second image sensor portion, wherein said event-counting readout includes a super-resolution computation readout including identification of a centroid with respect to event energy associated with a pixel and adjacent pixels.

7 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Hybrid energy conversion and processing detector

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Hybrid energy conversion and processing detector

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims14