X-ray microtomography on beamline X at SSRL

Abstract

This article describes a high-resolution three-dimensional CT system which has been tested on the new wiggler beamline X-2 at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory. The present system is a rotate-only design which uses a virtual phase CCD array camera optically coupled to a high-resolution phosphor screen. The spatial resolution of this system is presently somewhat better than 10 μm (50 line pairs/mm at 20% contrast). This resolution is limited by the optical elements in the detector, and we are undertaking an effort to improve this resolution to 1 μm. Nevertheless, the spatial resolution offered by this design is sufficient to begin many studies of interest to materials research, such as, supported catalysts, composite materials, and crack growth and propagation.