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US 5,567,929 AGranted
Flat panel detector and image sensor
AssigneeUniversity of Connecticut
InventorDonald R. Ouimette
Life of this patent
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AssigneeUniversity of Connecticut
InventorDonald R. Ouimette
Estimating the term…
A flat panel image sensor is provided by combining the photoconductive imaging electrode of a vidicon with a two dimensional array of cold cathode field emitters commonly used for flat panel Field Emission Display (FED) systems. The FED operates normally to emit electrons which are accelerated in prior art displays towards a luminescent phosphor to generate light output proportional to the cathode emission. Rather than accelerating towards a phosphor, electrons, in accordance with the principles of this invention, are accelerated towards a photoconductor layer to replace charge removed from the layer by an incident radiation pattern directed at the photoconductor layer through a layer of transparant, electrically-conducting material which serves as a radiation window. A large area, low cost, small, flat panel sensor is realized. The transparant, electrically-conducting layer may be partitioned to reduce stray capacitance for large area sensors and the partitioned, electrically-conducting layer permits a parallel readout mode of operation.
A flat panel image sensor comprising a housing including first and second surfaces, said surfaces being parallel to one another and including a vacuum therebetween, said first surface including a window for radiation, said window comprising a layer of a radiation-transparant, electrically-conducting material, a photoconductor layer positioned on the underside of said electrically-conducting layer and being electrically coupled thereto, said photoconductor layer having a surface facing said vacuum, said first surface being positioned to receive a multi-pixel radiation image, said second surface comprising an array of electron beam sources, said sensor including means for impressing a voltage on said electrically-conducting layer for establishing a bias field across said photoconductor layer, and means for activating said electron beam sources in a manner to discharge consecutive charges on said photoconductor layer corresponding to consecutive pixel positions of said image, and read cut means connected to said electrically-conducting layer for reading out the signals produced by the discharges.
A flat panel image sensor comprising a housing having first and second surfaces, said surfaces being parallel to one another and including a vacuum therebetween, said first surface including a window for radiation, said window comprising a layer of radiation transparant, electrically-conducting material, a photoconductor layer positioned on the underside of said electrically-conducting layer and being electrically coupled thereto, said photoconductor layer having a surface facing said vacuum, said second surface comprising an array of individual sources of an electron beam.
A flat panel device comprising a housing having first and second surfaces, said surfaces being parallel to one another and including a vacuum therebetween, said first surface including a window for radiation, said window comprising a layer of radiation-transparant, electrically-conducting material, a photoconductor layer positioned on the underside of said electrically-conducting layer and being electrically coupled thereto, said photoconductor layer having a surface facing said vacuum, said second surface comprising an array of sources of electrons, said layer of electrically-conducting material being partitioned into stripes, said device also including a plurality of amplifiers and means for connecting said stripes in pairs to associated ones of said amplifiers and means for reading data from said amplifiers selectively.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.