A portable x-ray source with a nanostructured Pt-coated silicon field emission cathode for absorption imaging of low-Z materials

We report the design, fabrication, and characterization of a portable x-ray generator for imaging of low-atomic number materials such as biological soft tissue. The system uses a self-aligned, gated, Pt-coated silicon field emitter cathode with two arrays of 62 500 nano-sharp tips arranged in a square grid with 10 μ m emitter pitch, and a natural convection-cooled reflection anode composed of a Cu bar coated with a thin Mo film. Characterization of the field emitter array demonstrated continuous emission of 1 mA electron current (16 mA cm − 2 ) with >95% current transmission at a 150 V gate-emitter bias voltage for over 20 h with no degradation. The emission of the x-ray source was characterized across a range of anode bias voltages to maximize the fraction of photons from the characteristic K-shell peaks of the Mo film to produce a quasi-monochromatic photon beam, which enables capturing high-contrast images of low-atomic number materials. The x-ray source operating at the optimum anode bias voltage, i.e. 35 kV, was used to image ex vivo and nonorganic samples in x-ray fluoroscopic mode while varying the tube current; the images resolve feature sizes as small as ~160 µ m.