Poly-capillary x-ray collimating lens composed with channels of different diameters for medical imaging

Poly-capillary X-ray lens provided a special mechanism to control X-ray radiation. In recent reported works, polycapillary X-ray lens started to be applied in medical imaging fields. The use of poly-capillary X-ray lens in medical imaging systems brought proper benefits in Compton scattering rejection and resolution enhancement. However, the Xray intensity distribution of the output has unsatisfied uniformity when using conventional poly-capillary lens if the primary rays emitted by a common X-ray tube. Uneven intensity distribution will cause problems such as details loss and longer exposure time for better reconstruction results. In this work, a new type of poly-capillary X-ray collimating lens was introduced for medical imaging. Different from the conventional ones, this kind of lens was divided into three regions and subarray units of different diameter channels were placed in their corresponding regions. A program was written based on ray-tracing method for optical design and imaging simulation. The optical properties of this new type collimating lens were tested, using a 50.0μm Cu target X-ray tube with 20.0kV voltage and 0.2mA currents. A plateau region that had good uniformity which is 4.0mm in diameter was obtained. In addition, X-ray transmission imaging experiments for small samples showed improvements in imaging qualities using this new optical component. Although the existence of manufacturing difficulties effects the finished product quality, this new kind of X-ray poly-capillary lens shows its potential in medical imaging.