Yalcin ISLER, Saadet Sena EGELİ, Alpman MANALP

New-Age Pyroelectric Radiographic X-Ray Generators

Medical imaging history has begun with the discovery of X-rays. X-rays that are widely used since their invention in different areas from projectional radiography to computed tomography. Year by year their technology is improved in many aspects especially for their generation of which tubes are changed to get the most efficient rays. Nowadays different mechanisms are studied to obtain X-rays; one of them is pyroelectricity phenomena. Pyroelectricity is a material’s electricity generation from temperature changes. The output spectra of the pyroelectric X-ray generator is quite similar to traditional X-ray tubes, which gives a chance for replacing low-voltage pyroelectric X-ray generators instead of high-voltage conventional X-ray tubes. The results of conducted experiments and continued studies show us that the use of pyroelectricity for X-ray generation has great advantages. More portable X-ray devices may be available in the near future, and these new designs offer safer and easier to operate since they use only 12 Volts instead of kiloVolts. In conclusion, healthcare technologies require high budges in general, this low-cost alternative might make the radiological imaging available for low-income countries. In this paper, the fundamentals of X-ray generation from pyroelectric material is reviewed, a device on the market, COOL-X, is investigated, and both conventional method and pyroelectricity methods are compared.

Keywords:

Pyroelectricity, X-ray generation, Medical radiology,

PDF

___

Brownridge, J.D. (1992). Pyroelectric X-ray Generator. Nature, 358(6384).
Brownridge, J.D., & Raboy, S. (1999). Investigations of pyroelectric generation of x-rays. Journal of Applied Physics, 86(1),640-647.
Brownridge, J.D., & Shafroth, S.M. (2002). Electron Beam Production by Pyroelectric Crystals.
Carroll, Q. B., (2011) Radiography in the Digital Age: Physics, Exposure, Radiation Biology. 7th edition, Charles C. Thomas, Illinois, USA.
COOL-X X-Ray Generator. (2019). http://amptek.com/products/cool-x-pyroelectric-x-ray-generator/ (Accessed in February 2019).
Dance, D.R., Christofides, S., Maidment, A.D.A., & McLean, I.D. Ng, K.H. (2014). Diagnostic radiology physics: A handbook for teachers and students. 1st edition, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Vienna.
Geuther, J., & Danon, Y. (2005). High-energy x-ray production with pyroelectric crystals. Journal of Applied Physics, 97(10).
Kotter, E. & Langer, M. (2002). Digital radiography with large-area flat-panel detectors. Eur Radiol, 12(10), 2562-2570.
Kusano, H., Hasebe, N., Nagaoka, H. et al. (2013). Basic studies on x-ray fluorescence analysis for active x-ray spectrometer on SELENE-2. Hard X-Ray Gamma-Ray and Neutron Detector Physics XV.
Kusano, H., Oyama, Y., Naito, M. et al. (2014). Development of an x-ray generator using a pyroelectric crystal for x-ray fluorescence analysis on planetary landing missions. Proc. SPIE 9213, Hard X-Ray, Gamma-Ray, and Neutron Detector Physics XVI, 921316.
Smith, H., Goel, A. et.al. (2018). Grids. https://radiopaedia.org/articles/grids (Accessed in February 2019).