Effect of Temperature Variation on the Energy Response of a Photon Counting Silicon CT Detector

The effect of temperature variation on pulse height determination accuracy is determined for a photon counting multibin silicon detector developed for spectral CT. Theoretical predictions of the temperature coefficient of the gain and offset are similar to values derived from synchrotron radiation measurements in a temperature controlled environment. By means of statistical modeling, we conclude that temperature changes affect all channels equally and with separate effects on gain and threshold offset. The combined effect of a 1°C temperature increase is to decrease the detected energy by 0.1 keV for events depositing 30 keV. For the electronic noise, no statistically significant temperature effect was discernible in the data set, although theory predicts a weak dependence. The method is applicable to all x-ray detectors operating in pulse mode.