I'm wondering, can't they use the radiation as an alternative to light (photons), in that environment? I'm guessing the radiation would scatter in a way comparable to light, so you would be able to get a similar kind of "imaging". Not sure how one would implement a radiation detector in silicon, but at least you could shield it by some layer of metal to get out of the range of overload and into the range of sensitivity.
High energy photons are quite different compared to visible light. They scatter instead of being reflected. They have a low cross-section which means you can't make tiny pixels. No reflection or diffraction means no optics.
