Photostimulated luminescence

Photostimulated luminescence (PSL) is the release of stored energy within a phosphor by stimulation with visible light, to produce a luminescent signal. X-rays may induce such an energy storage. A plate based on this mechanism is called a photostimulable phosphor (PSP) plate and is one type of X-ray detector used in projectional radiography. Creating an image requires illuminating the plate twice: the first exposure, to the radiation of interest, "writes" the image, and a later, second illumination (typically by a visible-wavelength laser) "reads" the image. The device to read such a plate is known as a phosphorimager (occasionally spelled phosphoimager, perhaps reflecting its common application in molecular biology for detecting radiolabeled phosphorylated proteins and nucleic acids).

Projectional radiography using a photostimulable phosphor plate as an X-ray detector can be called "phosphor plate radiography" or "computed radiography" (not to be confused with computed tomography which uses computer processing to convert multiple projectional radiographies to a 3D image).