AIP awards physics prize for flat detector

The American Institute of Physics will award its 2010 Prize for Industrial Applications of Physics next month to Robert Street of the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in California. Street’s pioneering work, done in the early 1990s, led to the development of flat-panel digital x-ray detectors. Now the standard in radiography, this type of flat panel detector depends on an amorphous silicon coating that turns X rays into flashes of light, which are recorded by electronic photo-sensitive arrays. Street will receive a $10,000 prize and certificate.