Charles Jay Davidson

US Patent:

6594335, Jul 15, 2003

Filed:

Dec 27, 2000

Appl. No.:

09/749978

Inventors:

Charles J. Davidson - Royal Oak MI 48067

International Classification:

G21K 700

US Classification:

378 43, 378119, 378143

Abstract:

These methods describe a collimated x-ray beam, used for in vivo phase-contrast x-ray imaging of the interior architecture of carbon-based objects, such as the intact human soft-tissue anatomy, for mapping the decrements of refraction experienced by the incident x-ray beam. These methods utilize a microscopically-thin laser-produced plasma x-ray spatial line-source, specified in the target plane as 50 microns or less in width and orthogonally, greater than one centimeter in length, requiring an optically-reflective mirror to line-focus cylindrically-shaped femptosecond pulses of infrared laser photons onto a heavy metal target. Bragg-diffractive multilayer x-ray mirrors collect a wide solid-angle of characteristic hard x-rays in the 15 KeV-to-100 KeV range from the spatial line-source, yielding a microscopically-thin x-ray fanbeam or x-ray slicebeam, specified in the object plane as 50 microns or less in width and orthogonally, greater than seven centimeters in length. These methods may employ slot-scanning and computed tomography for microscopic clinical x-ray imaging, such as for cancer-detection.