An innovative detector for X-ray beams made of polyethylene terephthalate built in a 3D printer

¹ UFPE, Brazil
² CRCN-NE/CNEN, Brazil
³ SCIENTS, Brazil

^* lasantos.scients@gmail.com

Published online: 21 November 2023

Abstract

3D printers have been increasingly used to create different objects and tools for the most diverse areas of knowledge. In this paper, we bring results of the response of an X-ray detector that was made on a 3D printer with polyethylene terephthalate glycol (PET-G) material. The manufacturing process has practically two steps, which consists of building a composite of two materials: a build-up cap made of PET-G; and a semiconductor film made of carbon-doped PET. The experimental methods performed were basically to compare the signals from the new PET-based X-ray detector with the signals from typical detectors. Clinical X-ray beams were used to test such an innovative detector. Two X-ray tube parameters were varied to analyse the response of the PET-based X-ray detector: potential (kV) and workload (mAs). The study points out the PET-G detector works and is easy to manufacture, although the signal is weaker than a typical semiconductor detector. Also, the noise signal is at least one order of magnitude smaller than silicon detectors. Furthermore, the density of PET is almost equivalent to human tissue, which is an advantage for dosimetry in phantoms. Finally, such a detector could become an option for X-ray beams in the near future.