24–30 Sept 2017
La Biodola, Isola d'Elba
Europe/Rome timezone

Laser wakefield accelerators as x-ray sources for biomedical imaging applications

26 Sept 2017, 16:30
15m
SB2, Sala Bonaparte 2, HH

SB2, Sala Bonaparte 2, HH

talk WG4 - Applications of Compact and High-Gradient Accelerators WG4_Parallel

Speaker

Dr Jason Cole (Imperial College London)

Description

Laser wakefield acceleration has been established in recent years as a proven method for the generation of electron beams up to the GeV scale in a compact laboratory setting. The oscillation of the electrons inside the plasma accelerator causes the emission of hard x-ray beams with short duration and high photon number. The effective x-ray source size is very small, typically near 1 micron, beneficial for x-ray imaging in two ways - the spatial resolution of point-projection radiography with this source is high, and the x-ray wavefront is spatially coherent over macroscopic distances, facilitating phase-contrast radiography. We have evaluated the suitability of laser-wakefield driven x-ray sources in the context of biomedical and pre-clinical imaging applications. We observe phase-contrast enhancement of small features in human soft-tissue samples, for example micro-calcifications in breast tissue which can be an early indication of cancer. Our source is of sufficient stability that we were also able to perform micro-computed tomography of embryonic murine samples, obtaining excellent resolution and signal-to-noise ratio throughout the 3D reconstruction.

Primary author

Dr Jason Cole (Imperial College London)

Co-authors

Dr CHRISTOS KAMPERIDIS (ELI-ALPS, HU) Dr Charlotte Palmer (DESY) Dr Daniel Symes (Rutherford Appleton Laboratory) Mr Dean Rusby (Central Laser Facility) Dr Dominic Norris (MRC Harwell) Dr Gianluca Sarri (Queen's University Belfast) Dr Henrik Westerburg (MRC Harwell) Dr J Sanderson (MRC Harwell) Mr James Thompson (University of Oxford) Mr James Warwick (Queens University Belfast) Dr Jonathan Wood (Imperial College London) Dr Kristjan Poder (DESY) Dr Lydia Teboul (MRC Harwell) Dr Mark Hill (University of Oxford) Dr Michael De Lazzari (University of Oxford) Dr Michael Sandholzer (MRC Harwell) Dr Nelson Lopes (Imperial College London) Olena Kononenko (Deutsches-Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY)) Dr Peta Foster (Central Laser Facility) Dr Saleh Alatabi (Imperial College London) Dr Sara Johnson (MRC Harwell) Dr Stan Botchway (Central Laser Facility) Dr Stuart Mangles (Imperial College London) Dr Zsombor Szoke-Kovacs (MRC Harwell) Prof. Zulfikar Najmudin (Imperial College London)

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