Patent ID: 6878944

Claim:
Detector for incident ionizing radiation comprising primary particles whose energies are greater than or equal to 100 keV, the detector including: a block of converting material configured to release secondary particles by interaction with the incident ionizing radiation, wherein a thickness of the block is at least equal to one-tenth of a mean free path traveled by the incident ionizing radiation through the converting material; parallel slits crossing the block, the slits filled with a fluid configured to interact with the secondary particles to produce tertiary particles indicative in intensity and position of the incident ionizing radiation, wherein the block is positioned to ensure that the incident ionizing radiation comes in on a first block face where the slits terminate, wherein the fluid is configured to be ionized by the secondary particles, thereby producing electrons as the tertiary particles, and the detector further includes means for creating an electric field for extracting the tertiary particles from the block, and wherein the converting material is an electrical conductor and the block is formed from stacked layers of the converting material, wherein the stacked layers alternate with electrically insulating layers and the stacked layers begin with a conducting layer of the converting material on the first face of the block and end with a conducting layer of the converting material on a second face of the block, which is opposite the first face and on which the slits terminate, and the detector further includes means for applying electric voltages to the stacked layers, with electric voltages increasing from the first face to the second face, thereby creating said electric field; and said detector further including a supplementary layer formed on an additional electrically insulating layer, the additional electrically insulating layer being formed on the last layer of the converting material, located at the second face of the block, wherein the supplementary layer is made of an electrically conducting material configured to absorb the secondary particles created in the last layer, and the supplementary and additional layers have said slits running through them.