About Us

Our vision is to develop affordable large-area direct conversion detectors for the X-ray imaging market.

The company is a spin-out from the Advanced Technology Institute (ATI), a world-leading research centre at Surrey University bringing together researchers with an international outlook in quantum information, nanotechnology, energy, and advanced materials. Prof Ravi Silva CBE founded the company in 2018 and successfully raised pre-seed funding in 2019 to research & validate the core innovation further.

Dan Cathie joined Ravi in 2022 as CEO with the remit of developing a strategy, hiring a team, raising seed funding, and ultimately commercialising the innovative technology for use across a wide range of X-ray imaging applications.

Technology

Our core technology offers high X-ray imaging performance at a sustainable cost point. The novelty lies in our nanoparticle-based X-ray conversion material which is produced as a semiconductor ink, then deposited onto a pixel backplane. Incoming X-rays are attenuated within the material and directly generate charge carriers, which are then transported to the underlying pixel array where they produce an electrical current response according to the energy of the detected X-ray photon.

High performance

High performance

The high X-ray imaging performance comes from the direct conversion capability of the material. Most traditional X-ray detectors use indirect conversion, which trades off resolution (how much detail you can see in an image) against dose efficiency (how many X-rays are needed to create a useable image). Direct conversion detectors are now accepted in the market for delivering best-in-class X-ray image sharpness, higher throughput for in-line inspection, and low dose performance for medical. However, these direct conversion detectors come at a significant cost premium due to their high material & processing costs.

Excellent from low to high X-ray energies

Excellent from low to high X-ray energies

As the nanoparticles that are used to block the incoming X-ray photons are selected to have a high X-ray attenuation (with a high atomic number ‘Z’ in the periodic table of elements), our material is particularly well suited to the inspection of challenging industrial products. Where thick objects (such as steel) need to be inspected at higher X-ray energies to ensure that the X-rays can penetrate the object under test, our material offers a new alternative for non-destructive test (NDT).

Lower cost

Lower cost

Our X-ray conversion material is based on a semiconductor ink and is therefore printable using common coating techniques. This enables significantly lower production costs compared to other conversion materials (for example CdTe, CZT, and even structured CsI). Our technology enables us to offer a price-competitive alternative for large-area direct conversion detectors.

Relevant publications

High sensitivity organic inorganic hybrid X-ray detectors with direct transduction and broadband response | Nature Communications (2018)

Ultra‐Low Dark Current Organic–Inorganic Hybrid X‐Ray Detectors | Advanced Functional Materials (2021)

Molecular Weight Tuning of Organic Semiconductors for Curved Organic–Inorganic Hybrid X‐Ray Detectors | Advanced Science (2022)

People

DAN CATHIE
DR. STEPHEN WHITELEGG
NORMAN STAPELBERG
JON JACOBS-HEADSPITH
Dr. Lana Beck
DR. RYAN WARR
HASSAN HASSANPOUR
DR. Mahdi Arabnejad
Dr. Andy Berry
Dylan Stapelberg
Dr. Karthieka Raja Rajeswaran

ADVISORY BOARD

PROFESSOR RAVI SILVA CBE

DR. RICHARD PARMEE

DR. FRANZ RICHTER

NEWS

Contact Us

 

Silveray’s operations are based at Pear Mill in Stockport (Greater Manchester, UK) with in-house optoelectronic device fabrication amenities, cleanroom facilities, and electronics lab space, as well as offices and meeting areas.

The company also has a presence at STFC’s facilities in Daresbury Lab, where it maintains close links to the local research community in the North West region of the UK.



Silveray

Unit F8 (5th floor)
Pear Mill Industrial Estate
Stockport Road West
Stockport, SK6 2BP
United Kingdom