Technical Advantages of CZT in CT Photon Counting

Cadmium Zinc Telluride (CZT)-based photon counting detectors demonstrate multi-dimensional technological breakthroughs in CT imaging, with their core advantages as follows:

I. Enhancement in Imaging Quality

High-resolution Imaging
- The pixelated design of CZT detectors enables capture of micrometer-level image details, significantly improving the visualization accuracy of anatomical structures. This is particularly beneficial for detecting tiny lesions (e.g., early-stage tumors, subtle fractures).
Optimized Spatial Resolution
- By eliminating physical septa between pixels (which traditional scintillator detectors require to prevent fluorescence crosstalk), CZT detectors remove imaging dead zones, increasing the effective detection area by ~30%. The spatial resolution reaches the 2.46 mm level, exceeding that of traditional detectors by over 1.5 times.

II. Energy Resolution and Multi-Spectral Applications

Precise Energy Information Capture
- The direct conversion mechanism endows CZT detectors with excellent energy resolution (energy spread ≤3%), allowing differentiation of X-ray photons with varying energies. This avoids the "average energy" artifacts in conventional CT, enhancing tissue contrast (e.g., distinguishing calcifications from iodine agents).
True Multi-Energy Spectral Imaging
- Capable of dividing X-ray photons into 4 or more independent energy levels (e.g., 40–80 keV segments), enabling quantitative analysis of material composition (e.g., iodine and calcium content measurement). This provides metabolic-level diagnostic evidence for tumor grading, gout stone detection, and other applications.