X-ray imaging

X-rays provide a versatile tool for imaging objects, not just in terms of physical structure but also in relation to specific characteristics such as chemical composition and bonding, and magnetic properties. Because X-rays are penetrating, it is possible to build up three dimensional images of archaeological specimens, machine components and living tissue. With more tightly focused beams and improved detectors, it will be possible to scan a living cell and map its detailed structure.

Example: Synchrotron imaging of fossils 17 million year old primate skulls of Homunculus patagonicus from Argentina (courtesy P. Tafforeau). One of the beamlines proposed in the Upgrade Programme includes an end-station partly dedicated to the scanning of thousands of fossils at exceptional resolution with the results to be made publicly available. Such work is only possible at a high energy source such as the ESRF.

Imaging experiments

Beamlines designed to image samples and analyse them spectroscopically at the nanometre scale, over a range of X-ray wavelengths, will have a huge variety of applications – in characterising engineering materials, biological tissues and cells, biochemical systems of medical interest, electronic devices, and palaeontological and archaeological specimens.

Applications

• Archaeology and palaeontology
• Biological structures
• Angiography and microbeam therapy
• Engineering structures
• Advanced materials
• Environmental science

Return to: The ESRF Upgrade science case