Mr. Anthony N. Evershed Profile

Anthony N. Evershed

at Queen Mary Univ of London

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Proceedings Article | 17 October 2012 Paper

Multi-species beam hardening calibration device for x-ray microtomography

Anthony Evershed, David Mills, Graham Davis

Proceedings Volume 8506, 85061N (2012) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.928933

KEYWORDS: X-rays, Signal attenuation, Photons, Calibration, Aluminum, Polymethylmethacrylate, Electrons, Absorption, Minerals, Tomography

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Impact-source X-ray microtomography (XMT) is a widely-used benchtop alternative to synchrotron radiation microtomography. Since X-rays from a tube are polychromatic, however, greyscale ‘beam hardening' artefacts are produced by the preferential absorption of low-energy photons in the beam path.

A multi-material ‘carousel' test piece was developed to offer a wider range of X-ray attenuations from well-characterised filters than single-material step wedges can produce practically, and optimization software was developed to produce a beam hardening correction by use of the Nelder-Mead optimization method, tuned for specimens composed of other materials (such as hydroxyapatite [HA] or barium for dental applications.) The carousel test piece produced calibration polynomials reliably and with a significantly smaller discrepancy between the calculated and measured attenuations than the calibration step wedge previously in use.

An immersion tank was constructed and used to simplify multi-material samples in order to negate the beam hardening effect of low atomic number materials within the specimen when measuring mineral concentration of higher-Z regions. When scanned in water at an acceleration voltage of 90 kV a Scanco AG hydroxyapatite / poly(methyl methacrylate) calibration phantom closely approximates a single-material system, producing accurate hydroxyapatite concentration measurements. This system can then be corrected for beam hardening for the material of interest.

Proceedings Article | 17 October 2012 Paper

Recent developments in the MuCAT microtomography facility

Graham Davis, Anthony Evershed, David Mills

Proceedings Volume 8506, 85060E (2012) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.928855

KEYWORDS: X-rays, Cameras, Scanners, Calibration, Signal attenuation, Sensors, X-ray imaging, Distortion, Algorithm development, X-ray detectors

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The goal of the MuCAT scanner development at Queen Mary University of London is to provide highly accurate maps of a specimen’s X-ray linear attenuation coefficient; speed of data acquisition and spatial resolution having a lower priority. The reason for this approach is that the primary application is to accurately map the mineral concentration in teeth. Synchrotron tomography would generally be considered more appropriate for such a task, but many of the dental applications involve repeated scans with long intervening periods (from hours to weeks) and the management of synchrotron facilities does not readily allow such research. Development work is concentrated in two areas: beam hardening correction algorithms and novel scanning methodology. Beam hardening correction is combined with calibration, such that the raw X-ray projection data is corrected for beam hardening prior to reconstruction. Recent developments include the design of a multi-element calibration carousel. This has nine calibration pieces, five aluminium, three titanium and one copper. Development of the modelling algorithm is also yielding improved accuracy. A time-delay integration CCD camera is used to avoid ring artefacts. The original prototype averaged out inhomogeneities in both the detector array and the X-ray field; later designs used only software correction for the latter. However, at lower X-ray energies, the effect of deposits on the X-ray window (for example) becomes more conspicuous and so a new scanning methodology has been designed whereby the specimen moves in an arc about the source and equiangular data is acquired, thus overcoming this problem.

Proceedings Article | 2 September 2010 Paper

Quantitative x-ray microtomography with a conventional source

Graham Davis, Anthony Evershed, James Elliott, David Mills

Proceedings Volume 7804, 78040I (2010) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.861355

KEYWORDS: X-rays, Signal attenuation, Scanners, Sensors, Cameras, Aluminum, Optical filters, Distortion, Glasses, Teeth

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In 1981, Elliott and Dover designed an X-ray microtomography scanner as a means of measuring the local mineral concentration in teeth. Although slow, this first generation system gave accurate measurements of the X-ray linear attenuation coefficient (LAC) due to its use of energy dispersive photon counting apparatus. Attaining such accuracy with integrating detectors in third generation scanners is difficult, but has been the goal of our ongoing development. The current "MuCat 2" system uses a 6cm square CCD chip with a parallel fibre-optic faceplate coupled to a CsI scintillator. Time delay integration readout (with sliding camera) is used to eliminate ring artefacts and enable high dynamic range X-ray projections to be acquired. The beam is collimated with a moving aperture (tracking the camera) to reduce X-ray scatter. Beam hardening is reduced by the use of filtering and corrected using data from an aluminium step wedge to optimise a model of polychromatic X-ray generation, attenuation and detection. Adjustments can be made to the model to allow for known specimen composition. Projections are corrected for distortion and repeatable wobble in the rotation stage. Where high absolute accuracy of the LAC is required, a pure aluminium wire is included in the scan and used to "fine-tune" the grey level after reconstruction.

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