A pulsed hard x-ray source for nondestructive testing and medical imaging

The ability to nondestructively image living organisms, examine biological materials, and inspect packages without the necessity of removing the contents are applications well suited to x-ray radiography. We have developed a portable flash x-ray (FX) source having adjustable peak x-ray photon energy, which delivers a 34 milliroentgen rr-ray dose at 30 cm in a 60-ns full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) pulse using less than 5 joules of stored energy. This technology has generated considerable interest in the biomedical imaging community and promises to replace older x-ray systems that were not readily portable.