Effective atomic number image determination with an energy-resolving photon-counting detector using polychromatic X-ray attenuation by correcting for the beam hardening effect and detector response.

Abstract In this study, we propose an effective atomic number ( Z eff ) determination method based on a photon-counting technique. The proposed method can correct for the effects of beam hardening and the detector response based on polychromatic X-rays to allow high accuracy material identification. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our method, the procedure was applied to X-ray images acquired by a prototype energy-resolving photon-counting detector and we obtained an Z eff image with accuracy of Z eff ± 0.5 regardless of the mass thickness.