Radiography and tomography system using refractive lenses

Abstract

A prototype x-ray imaging system was built and tested for high-resolution x-ray radiography and tomography. The instrument consists of a microspot x-ray tube with a multilayer optic, a parabolic compound refractive lens (CRL) made of a plastic containing only hydrogen and carbon, and an x-ray detector. A rotation stage was added for tomography. Images were acquired of both grid meshes and biological materials, and these are compared to images achieved with spherical lenses. We found the best image quality using the multilayer condenser with a parabolic lens, compared to images with a spherical lens and without the multilayer optics. The resolution was measured using a 155 element parabolic CRL and a multilayer condenser with the microspot tube. The experiment demonstrates about 1.1 µm resolution.