Linear modeling of single-shot dual-energy x-ray imaging using a sandwich detector

For single-shot dual-energy (DE) imaging, a sandwich detector typically consists of a thin front detector and a thick rear detector. Therefore, the spatial-resolution characteristics of the two detectors are different, and as a result, weighted subtraction of the corresponding two images gives rise to edge-enhancement characteristics in the resulting DE images. This is a unique characteristic of single-shot DE imaging compared to the conventional dual-shot DE imaging which uses the same detector to acquire low-and high-energy images. Using a linear-systems theory, in this paper, we show that the modulation-transfer function (MTF) of a sandwich detector is a weighted average of contributions from each MTF characteristic of two detector layers forming the sandwich detector. The MTF results obtained using the developed model are validated with those measured directly from single-shot DE images for an edge-knife phantom. Weighting larger than at least 0.5 in DE reconstruction gives an enhancement in DE MTF at mid and high spatial frequencies compared to the MTFs obtained from each detector layer. The behavior of the linear model as a function of weighting factor used for DE reconstruction is discussed in comparisons with numerical simulations.