Hyoung K Lee
Missouri University of Science and Technology, USA
Title: Advances in diagnostic X-ray sources
Biography
Biography: Hyoung K Lee
Abstract
X-ray imaging has been a prominent part of diagnostics since x-ray was discovered by Röntgen in 1895. Over the past ~120 years, the x-ray source technology has undergone noteworthy advancements that resulted in a wide range of x-ray imaging modalities for diagnosing various ailments in human anatomy. With the contribution of researchers from all over the globe, the x-ray source technology has been continually advanced to overcome the technical challenges behind applying the x-ray imaging technology to various imaging modalities. In this talk, the advances in diagnostic x-ray sources and their applications that have already being implemented in medical practice and that have a potential to make it to medical practice in the near future will be discussed. It will start with a brief history of x-ray sources along with major leaps in technology that overcame challenges such as dissipating large amount of heat from the anode, maintaining vacuum pressure in the tube, extending the tungsten filament lifetime, and avoiding high-voltage breakdown. Other technical challenges and issues of certain x-ray imaging systems, for example, cardiac CT, duel-energy (spectral) CT, etc. will be discussed. Recent research activities in x-ray tube technology such as utilization of field emission electron source in place of filament, transmission type anodes, distributed x-ray sources, and flat-panel x-ray sources (Fig. 1) will be introduced. In addition, advanced diagnostic imaging systems such as stationary CT and tetrahedron beam CT based on advanced architecture of x-ray tubes will be introduced. The stationary CT system implements a stationary gantry with x-ray sources and detectors distributed along the gantry to electronically sweep an x-ray beam along the gantry (Fig. 2), which is expected to reach a temporal resolution of ~30 msec. Finally, nonbremsstrahlung x-ray sources that may be useful for medical imaging in the future will be introduced.