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New Method for Generating X-Rays

Graphene X-Rays
By using plasmons to “wiggle” a free electron in a sheet of graphene, researchers have developed a new method for generating X-rays. In this image of one of their simulations, the color and height represent the intensity of radiation (with blue the lowest intensity and red the highest), at a moment in time just after an electron (grey sphere) moving close to the surface generates a pulse.

A new technique for generating X-rays could produce a tight, narrow beam, which would help reduce the amount of radiation patients receive. X-ray technology is long overdue for an upgrade, since it has hardly changed during the last century. The standard approach to X-rays involves creating high-energy charged particles and “wiggling” them. Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology have developed a new concept that could be less expensive and more precise.

The idea is that by striking a graphene sheet with a laser beam, surface waves called plasmons would be generated. An MIT news release explains, “These plasmons in turn could be triggered to generate a sharp pulse of radiation, tuned to wavelengths anywhere from infrared light to X-rays.” While traditional methods involve accelerating electrons, this new technique could be easier and less expensive because it only requires low-energy electrons. The result would be a tight, uniform X-ray beam.

This approach is described in the journal Nature Photonics. At this point, the new X-ray system is only theoretical, based on simulations. Looking ahead, the team is building a device to test the concept in a lab. The researchers say a practical X-ray device could be ready in a soon as three years, but they also cautiously warned that it may never work in the real world.

- Partner Content -

A Dash of Maxwell’s: A Maxwell’s Equations Primer – Part Two

Maxwell’s Equations are eloquently simple yet excruciatingly complex. Their first statement by James Clerk Maxwell in 1864 heralded the beginning of the age of radio and, one could argue, the age of modern electronics.
Source: MIT | Image courtesy of the researchers

 

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