Patent ID: 7342233

Claim:
An x-ray apparatus for acquisition of images containing spectral information, comprising: a) an x-ray source operable to output a plurality of x-ray photons; b) a multi-slit collimator having a plurality of openings operable to direct the x-ray photons into a plurality of beams; a set of line detectors each aligned with one of the openings to receive the x-ray photons of one of the beams each of said line detectors being a linear array of photon counting channels, each of said channels comprising a photon conversion channel element being operatively arranged to directly convert each received x-ray photon to an electric pulse, said pulse having a strength depending on the energy of the x-ray photon converted thereto; c) a plurality of pulse counters including first counters operable to count said pulses which have a first range of pulse strength and second counters operable to count said pulses which have a second range of pulse strength lower than said first range; and d) an arrangement for energy subtracting operation.