MTF characterization in 2D and 3D for a high resolution, large field of view flat panel imager for cone beam CT

The 2D and 3D modulation transfer functions (MTFs) of a custom made, large 40x30cm(2) area, 600-micron CsI-TFT based flat panel imager having 127-micron pixellation, along with the micro-fiber scintillator structure, were characterized in detail using various techniques. The larger area detector yields a reconstructed FOV of 25cm diameter with an 80cm SID in CT mode. The MTFs were determined with 1x1 (intrinsic) binning. The 2D MTFs were determined using a 50.8 micron tungsten wire and a solid lead edge, and the 3D MTF was measured using a custom made phantom consisting of three nearly orthogonal 50.8 micron tungsten wires suspended in an acrylic cubic frame. The 2D projection data was reconstructed using an iterative OSC algorithm using 16 subsets and 5 iterations. As additional verification of the resolution, along with scatter, the Catphan (R) phantom was also imaged and reconstructed with identical parameters. The measured 2D MTF was similar to 4% using the wire technique and similar to 1% using the edge technique at the 3.94 lp/mm Nyquist cut-off frequency. The average 3D MTF measured along the wires was similar to 8% at the Nyquist. At 50% MTF, the resolutions were 1.2 and 2.1 lp/mm in 2D and 3D, respectively. In the Catphan phantom, the 1.7 lp/mm bars were easily observed. Lastly, the 3D MTF measured on the three wires has an observed 5.9% RMSD, indicating that the resolution of the imaging system is uniform and spatially independent. This high performance detector is integrated into a dedicated breast SPECT-CT imaging system.