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In X-ray Imaging, How Can Structure of Scintillation Screens Affect the Image Resolution

Question: What is image resolution and why this matters in X-ray imaging?

Answer: Image resolution is a measure of the minimum discernible distance between two adjacent details within an image; it can also be described in terms of image unsharpness. Image resolution is expressed as the number of recognizable line pairs per millimeter; its value is equal to one-half the reciprocal of the image unsharpness, with units of Lp/mm.

For example: If a detector has a pixel size of 200 µm, the corresponding resolution is 1 / (0.2 × 2) Lp/mm—that is, 2.5 Lp/mm.

Question: X-ray Imaging, How Can the Structure of Scintillation Screens Affect the Image Resolution

Answer: Scintillation screens can be made of scintillation single crystal, polycrystalline phosphor, or powder phosphor.

The reason why the structure of scintillation screen will affect the imaging resolution is that when light propagates in the scintillator, the light suffers from horizontal light spreading. By introducing columnar, or sitimes also called needle-like microstructure, in the scintillation single crystal, such as columnar CsI(Tl), inside which the columnar structures are like miniature optical fibers that guide the light towards the exit surface, light spreading can be reduced and image resolution enhanced. This is because when scintillation cry screens are excited by X-rays, the scintillation crystal screens emit light photons, the most ideal situation contributing to highest image resolution is that the photons travels straight to the sensor without spreading sideways, because in that way the spatial information of the photons are authentically retained. However in real life the photons does not travel one hundred percentage straight. The columnar structure in CsI(Tl) can be interpreted as helping the photons travels straighter, in other words, minimize lateral diffusion.

Where the question comes from:
This is Grace Tang from Shalom EO, in the company, scintillators is one of my working areas and I solve related technical requirements for customers.

In May 2026, I met a customer who’s application is X-ray imaging and wants to purchase some scintillation screens from us.

The parameter of their prior importance is the image resolution of the X-ray image formed by using the scintillation screen. And this customer in the end choosed columnar CsI(Tl) on thin glass substrate as the solution. The CsI(Tl) are grown to the specified thickness on the substrates using vacuum evaporation deposition, instead of being polished down to the the specified thickness. This is because we don’t want to damage the crystalline structure of the CsI(Tl) in the polishing process.

In X-ray Imaging, How Can Structure of Scintillation Screens Affect the Image Resolution

Question: What is image resolution and why this matters in X-ray imaging?

Question: X-ray Imaging, How Can the Structure of Scintillation Screens Affect the Image Resolution

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