Abstract
A bench-top x-ray micro-CT scanner was used to evaluate a focusing x-ray optic as a means to augment micro-CT scanner performance. The optic consists of a bundle of hollow glass fibers (25 μm diameter) which are arranged and curved so that the optic has an 8° input focus and a 4.1° output focus cone angle. This optic was placed between our spectroscopy x-ray source (18 keV) and the specimen. The x-ray fluorescent crystal plate was placed as close as possible behind the specimen and the light image generated within it was projected onto a CCD with a lens. The specimen was imaged and rotated about its axis in 1° steps until a 360° rotation was completed. The resulting, normalized, projection images were submitted to modified Feldkamp cone-beam reconstruction. A 1 cm diameter plastic cylinder, in which glass microspheres (nominally 10, 30, 100 or 300 μm diameter) were suspended, was used to compare the spatial resolution of the x-ray optic versus the no-optic scans performed at a range of comparable focal spot-to-specimen distances. The increased flux at the specimen obtained by placing the specimen (and fluorescent crystal) closer to the output focal spot of the optic resulted in increased x-ray flux, thereby reducing scan duration several-fold without increase in penumbral blurring.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 158-166 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering |
Volume | 3772 |
State | Published - 1999 |
Event | Proceedings of the 1999 Developments in X-Ray Tomography II - Denver, CO, USA Duration: Jul 22 1999 → Jul 23 1999 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
- Condensed Matter Physics
- Computer Science Applications
- Applied Mathematics
- Electrical and Electronic Engineering