Experience the Hologic Direct-to-Digital Imaging Difference

Until recently it was technically possible to use electronic technologies to replace and surpass film for three of its four functions - image display, storage and communication. The missing piece was an effective method for capturing high-resolution x-ray image data in a digital format. In the late 1990s digital detectors became available for general radiography applications and in 2002 they became available for digital mammography imaging.

There are significant differences in how digital detectors work. The simplest way to differentiate digital detector types is to divide them into two classes.

Indirect-Conversion Digital Detectors

The earliest digital detectors used an indirect method of imaging, similar to screen-film, wherein a scintillator absorbs the x-rays and generates a light scintillation. The light scintillation is then detected by an array of photodetectors. Indirect conversion detector systems suffer from resolution degradation caused by light spread in the scintillator.

Direct-Conversion Digital Detectors

Direct conversion systems have their resolution characteristics optimized independently from their quantum detection efficiency and can thus be designed with an optimum pixel size.

Indirect-conversion detectors absorb the x-ray and generate light photons, which are detected by a photodiode array. Because light is involved, scatter is a problem.

Hologic detectors absorb the x-ray and directly generate an electronic signal. No intensifying screens, intermediate processes, or additional steps are required.

Hologic DirectRay detectors are manufactured under stringent "clean room" conditions in a specially designed manufacturing site

• No phosphors
• No scintillators
• No intermediate steps
• No light to diffuse or scatter
• Nothing to degrade the quality of the digital signal