X-ray Optics - Technologies

Technologies

There are a variety of techniques used to funnel X-ray photons to the appropriate location on a X-ray detector:

• Grazing incidence mirrors in a Wolter telescope, or a Kirkpatrick-Baez X-ray reflection microscope,
• Zone plates,
• Bent crystals,
• Normal-incidence mirrors making use of multilayer coatings,
• Normal-incidence lens much like an optical lens, such as a compound refractive lens,
• Microstructured optical arrays, namely capillary/polycapillary optical systems,
• Coded aperture imaging, or
• Modulation collimators.

Most X-ray optical elements (with the exception of grazing incidence mirrors) are very small, and must be designed for a particular incident angle and energy, thus limiting their applications in divergent radiation. Although the technology has advanced rapidly, its practical uses are still limited. One of the applications showing greater promise is in enhancing both the contrast and resolution of mammographic images, compared to conventional anti-scatter grids.