Medipix detector: An application in high energy physics and a spin-off for medical imaging

Medipix is a family of silicon hybrid pixel detectors and photon counting read-out chips. Integrated with an ASIC based front-end electronics, they count individual particles hitting the pixels, thus producing high-resolution and high-contrast images and therefore finding novel imaging applications. These detectors are capable of distinguishing incident particles based on the patterns of activated pixels due to their interactions with the sensor.

The CMS-Medipix project, by deploying a large network of devices in the CMS cavern aimed at measuring real-time fluxes and spectral composition of different particles including neutrons and thereby ascertain the performance of various detector systems as well as to predict their useful lifetimes. The MARS group of the Universities of Canterbury and Otago, Christchurch is responsible for development of the readout electronics and software used in this project. The MARS group recently caught world’s attention for announcing the world’s first 3D colour X-ray scanner based on the Medipix detector. Aided by the spectroscopic information generated by the Medipix, the scanner is cable of identifying different components of body parts such as fat, water, calcium, and disease markers.

We will begin this talk with an introduction of the Medipix detector. We will describe the CMS-Medipix project and present some of the initial results obtained. In conclusion, we will briefly report about Medipix’s spinoff for societal benefit - the colour X-ray scanner.

About the Speaker:
Srinidhi completed Bachelor's in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering from University of Mumbai. He was on a Pfizer project at TCS for more than a year, before joining the University of Otago as a graduate student in the CMS experiment.