Abstract
Conventional flat-panel X-ray detectors suffer from image distortion and non-uniformity when imaging non-planar geometries. Flexible X-ray detectors can conformally fit on a non-planar target surface and thus reduce image distortion. However, it is challenging to create thin-film transistors and photodetector backplanes that offer the necessary mechanical flexibility while maintaining good carrier mobility and photoresponsivity. Here we report a flexible active-matrix X-ray detector that has a backplane based on two-dimensional molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) transistors and graphene/MoS2 photodetectors. The backplane covers a large area of 3 cm × 3 cm with a total of 3,600 pixels, and exhibits a high electron mobility of 17.31 cm2 V−1 s−1 and a photoresponsivity of 9.37 A W−1 near the scintillator emission wavelength (544 nm). We use generative adversarial network-based post-processing to suppress inherent device noise, and show that the approach can provide high-quality images under lower X-ray exposure than typically needed for medical diagnosis and industrial inspection.
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Source data are provided with this paper. Other data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy (MOTIE) grant (20012355), the National Research Foundation of Korea (RS-2024-00435661), and Lee Youn Jae Fellow Program and International Joint Research Grant by Yonsei University. Y.C. acknowledges support from the National Key R&D Program of China (2022YFA1203804) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (62425405).
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J.-H.A. planned and supervised the project. B.J.K. and A.T.H. designed the experiment. B.J.K., B.S., Y.C. and J.-H.A prepared the manuscript. A.T.H. grew MoS2 on the SiO2 wafer. B.J.K. and S.Y. performed the finite element simulation. J.H. designed the read-out circuit. S.J., A.K.K. and D.X. analysed the experimental data. Y.C., B.S. and J.W. designed and conducted the post-processing.
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Kim, B.J., Shao, B., Hoang, A.T. et al. A flexible active-matrix X-ray detector with a backplane based on two-dimensional materials. Nat Electron 8, 147–156 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-024-01317-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-024-01317-7
