Detector quantum efficiency
A measure of the combined effects of the signal (related to image contrast) and noise performance of an imaging system, generally expressed as a function of spatial frequency. In radiological modalities, the DQE describes how effectively an x-ray imaging system can produce an image in terms of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) relative to an ideal detector for a full range of detail sizes.
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from ICRP Publication 129, 2015
A widely used metric that describes the quality of an x-ray detector. It measures the efficiency (i.e. signal-to-noise performance) of the detector to produce an image from a given incident fluence. Intuitively it captures how well a detector translates the fluence incident on it into an image relative to an ideal detector.