AIF Acquires New X-ray Microscope Instrument from Zeiss

The Xradia 510 Versa High-Resolution 3D X-ray Tomography System (purchased through a recent NSF MRI award) has the following unique characteristics for nondestructive, quantitative, three-dimensional characterization of a wide range of sample sizes and material types:

• Dual-stage detector system: The unique detector system has two-stage magnification geometry that includes both optical magnification and X-ray projection geometric magnification, providing high spatial resolution at large working distance (i.e., 1-μm resolution at 50-mm working distance). It has a maximum spatial resolution of 700 nm, with a minimum achievable voxel size of 70 nm.
• Detector variety: Four detectors (0.4x, 4x, 20x, FPX=Flat Panel eXtension) are installed in the microscope simultaneously to provide a wide range of spatial resolution, including large field of view (0.4x), low resolution (4x), ultra-high resolution (20x), and large volume imaging (FPX). The FPX accommodates larger samples to enable versatile multi-scale workflows. All detectors are usable across the entire source energy range.
• Absorption contrast and phase contrast modes: Enhanced absorption contrast detectors maximize collection of low-energy photons to optimize contrast and enhance imaging of materials with low atomic number or materials with similar atomic number, such as soft tissues and polymers. Tunable prophase contrast measures refraction of X-ray photons at material transitions to visualize features with little or no contrast during absorption imaging.

Click here to read the recent interview with Dr. Jacque Cole, who won the NSF award.