X-ray imaging has become an essential tool in healthcare, manufacturing, and safety, allowing us to see inside objects without cutting them open. Currently, the industry relies on conventional semiconductor materials like cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) and amorphous selenium (a-Se). While effective, these materials face limitations: they are costly to produce in large, uniform sizes, and often require high operating voltages, which can lead to increased radiation exposure and reduced practicality. Additionally, achieving high-resolution images over large areas remains a challenge, delaying widespread adoption of advanced, high-quality X-ray systems.
In this context, metal‑halide perovskites (MHPs) have emerged as a game-changing class of semiconductors for direct X-ray detection, owing to their strong X-ray attenuation, high mobility-lifetime product, and low-temperature processability. Over the past decade, perovskite X-ray detectors have achieved sensitivities exceeding 10 5 μC Gy -1 cm -2 and detection limits below 1 nGy s -1 , far surpassing commercial alternatives. Nevertheless, most reported devices still rely on single-pixel scanning, which incurs prolonged acquisition times and elevated radiation doses. The foremost challenge today lies in scaling up perovskites for large-area, flat-panel X-ray imaging. To this end, this review focuses on three critical areas, including scalable material fabrication, backplane integration, and imaging performance optimization.
Scalable m aterial f abrication . The authors summarize various approaches for producing high-quality perovskite single crystals, which remain primarily suited for single-pixel or energy-resolved detectors due to size and integration constraints. For large-area imaging, they review scalable methods for thick films and wafers. These techniques enable thicknesses ranging from hundreds of nanometers to millimeters over areas up to 100 cm 2 , providing a solid foundation for flat-panel imaging arrays.
Backplane i ntegration . Two main integration routes are discussed. (I) Adhesive transfer: Prefabricated perovskite layers are attached to backplanes using either perovskite binders (3D, 2D RP, or 2D DJ perovskites) or non-perovskite adhesives (such as anisotropic conductive adhesives, liquid metals, and polymer buffers). This method avoids thermal damage to the backplane but requires careful management of interfacial stress and long-term reliability. (II) Direct deposition: Perovskites are grown in situ on the backplane via blade coating, screen printing, or vapor deposition. While this approach reduces interfacial defects and aligns well with existing manufacturing lines, solvent evaporation and thermal expansion mismatch remain unresolved challenges.
Outlook and challenges. To translate perovskite X-ray imagers into clinical and industrial practice, several critical issues must be addressed: further suppressing ion migration to improve operational stability, developing lead-free or more robust perovskite compositions (accelerated by machine learning), mitigating stress at the perovskite–backplane interface, and scaling manufacturing processes to ensure compatibility with existing flat-panel production lines. The authors propose that synergistic optimization across materials, interfaces, and fabrication methods represents the path forward.
The review has been recently published in Materials Futures , a prominent international journal in the field of interdisciplinary materials science research.
Citation: Jiaming Li, Dongxu Lin, Yue Zhou, Dongrui Li, Yao Wu, Weiqiang Chen, Pengfei Huang, Burak Yilmazer, Nikolai A. Belich, Alexey B. Tarasov, Mengqi Xiao, Qingsong Hu, Chao-Qun Yan, Longbin Qiu, Qi Chen, Yan Jiang. Towards Scalable High-Resolution X-Ray Imaging with Direct-Type Perovskite Detectors[J]. Materials Futures. DOI: 10.1088/2752-5724/ae726c
Materials Futures
Towards Scalable High-Resolution X-Ray Imaging with Direct-Type Perovskite Detectors
25-May-2026