From dream to reality: 25 years since the first Medipix paper
From particle physics instrumentation to advanced medical imaging devices, hybrid pixel detectors have been revolutionising particle detection for a long time.
The Timepix3 chip is a multipurpose hybrid pixel detector developed within the Medipix3 Collaboration, having applications within medical imaging, education, space dosimetry and material analysis. (Image: CERN)
The extraordinary colour X-ray images of the human body produced with the Medipix3 chip have been made possible by 35 years of cutting-edge technological developments: which started around 1988 in the CERN microelectronics group. In the same year, the paper “The silicon micropattern detector: a dream?” was published, and the first Workshop on silicon pixel detectors was held in Leuven. Ten years later, in 1998, the first Medipix paper was published. Today’s Medipix collaboration activities are an impressive reminder of how far this technology has come and of the outstanding breadth of applications, both inside and outside of basic research.