CTS—A new X-ray facility for imaging and tomography @ XlabF

Abstract

X-ray based techniques are widely used in the world. However, high interactions between radiation and matter causes a not so easy radiation handling by optical devices. In the last 30 years, the studies concerning novel advanced material have fostered the development of several solutions for more efficient X-ray setup, necessary to perform high spatial resolution analysis in spectroscopy as well as for imaging techniques applied in Medicine/Pharmacology, Cultural Heritage, Geology and Environment, Electronics, Aerospace, etc.Recent results (principally in three main fields, such as high resolution X-ray Imaging, micro X-Spectroscopy and micro Tomography) obtained at XLab-Frascati (XlabF) were previously discussed while very recently, a new experimental setup, dedicated for High Resolution X-ray Imaging and μ-Tomography, was developed as a part of Italian Premiale project, called ”Computed Tomography Station” (CTS). This apparatus is equipped with a micro-focusing source (5μm on the anode), high precision mechanics and high-resolution CCD detector (10.4μm per pixel), so as through the phase retrieval technique, we can reach the estimated resolution of less than 1μm. The CTS experimental setup was commissioned ad the beginning of 2023 and it is already ready to be opened for internal and external users.In this work, we will show the last results concerning our new experimental setup, related to the analysis of a glass capillary, with different geometrical distances, and two organic samples entrapped in matrix amber. Starting from these results, the next step is to use modern polycapillary optics as a grating interferometric hexagonal matrix for a better phase-contrast resolution.