High energy resolution PIXE with high efficiency using the heavy ion microbeam

An X-ray crystal spectrometer using a position sensitive proportional counter combined with tandem microbeam line at Osaka National Research Institute have been developed. This system realizes high energy resolution PIXE analysis using a heavy ion microbeam (E < 6 MeV) with reasonable detection efficiency. The design of the spectrometer, such as detection geometry, detectable energy range and energy resolution, are described. This system was applied to high energy resolution PIXE analysis of Ti, SUS and Si with 2 MeV proton and 5 MeV Si³⁺ focused or collimated beams. The best energy resolution was 2 eV for the Si K line.     

White beam synchrotron topography using a high resolution digital X-ray imaging detector

X-ray topography is a well known imaging technique to characterise strain and extended defects in single crystals. Topographs are typically collected on X-ray films. On the one hand such photographic films show a limited dynamic range and the production of films will be discontinued step by step in the near future. On the other hand new imaging detectors improved for X-ray tomography become more and more attractive even for topography because of increasing resolution, dynamic range, speed and active area. In this paper we report about the upgrade of the TOPO-TOMO beamline at the synchrotron light source ANKA, Research Centre Karlsruhe, with a high resolution digital camera for the topography use.     

A high resolution multipurpose ESCA instrument with X-ray monochromator

The design and performance of a new high resolution multipurpose instrument are described and illustrated. The instrument comprises a high-power, fine-focusing e^?-gun, a high speed rotating anode, a double focusing multi-crystal X-ray monochromator, a monochromatic UV-source with a toroidal grating, a fine-focus variable energy e^?-source, a four-element electrostatic e^?-lens system, a large 36 cm hemispherical electrostatic analyzer, a 12 cm wide electron multi-detector system and a dedicated computer system. Various sample probes for gases, liquids and solids are discussed. The instrument is shown to reach an energy resolution of at least 0.23 eV with X-ray excitation at a sufficient intensity to enable the study of gases.A number of illustrative examples of the proved instrumental performance is presented. A new “line-sharpening” effect, due to post-collision interaction in Auger electron spectra, is revealed due to the high spectrometer resolution. The strongest vibrational components of the C 1s ESCA line from methane are for the first time resolved. High resolution spectra are also presented for solids, e.g. the spin-orbit split Si 2p line is well resolved into two components and new resolved structures appear in the Ag and Au valence bands. Calculated density of states are found to be in good agreement with these structure rich d-bands. Phonon excitation accompanying the photoionization process is discussed in relation to its causing additional broadening of the Si 2p lines.     

基于面向对象的高分辨率遥感影像目标信息提取

分析比较多光谱遥感影像分割任务中应用较多的3种分割算法,得出分形网络演化(FNEA)方法在影像对象获取中的优势明显。综合考虑目标地物的光谱、形状、纹理结构等属性特征,上下文语义特征,空间关系特征,辅以地物的边缘信息,提取研究区高分辨率遥感影像地物信息,并对分类结果进行精度评价,实验表明,基于面向对象的FNEA算法在高分辨率遥感影像目标信息提取方面具有良好的应用价值。     

Heavy ion and proton beams in high resolution imaging of a fungi spore specimen using STIM tomography

Scanning transmission ion microscopy (STIM) tomography as a 3-D imaging technique has been shown to have a range of applications. The energy of the transmitted ion is detected with nearly 100% efficiency as a function of position in the transverse plane. The parameters relating to transmitted ion energy loss in the sample are imaged with statistics given by the energy loss process rather than Poisson counting statistics. This enables very fast collection of a set of relatively noise-free 2-D images. Each image is collected after a small rotation of the sample, and a complete 3-D representation of the sample may be tomographically reconstructed. The small beam currents necessary mean that the technique is non-destructive. One of the fields where these non-destructive 3-D density structure maps are particularly useful is in the analysis of biological tissue. The variation of energy loss with projectile atomic number may be exploited to tune the energy loss contrast to the size and density of the sample (heavy ion STIM). This work develops this point, and applies it to the imaging of the microscopic structure of a 90 μm diameter mycorrhiza fungi spore. This specimen has been imaged non-destructively in 3-D using both a 36 MeV ¹²C beam and a 2.2 MeV proton beam, both with a spatial resolution of about 1 μm. The gain in contrast in the carbon median energy loss maps was dramatic as expected. The corresponding improvement in the tomogram was found to be visible but less dramatic. The tomographic sections as well as the median energy loss maps of the vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhiza fungi spore clearly show the internal structure. Wall morphology data has relevance to germination behaviour of the spores.     

Development of an high resolution neutron spectroscopy system using a diamond detector and a remote digital acquisition methodology

The need of performing high resolution fast neutron spectroscopy in a very harsh environment like that of the Radial Neutron Camera (RNC) of ITER, requires to develop new detectors and methodologies. Diamond detectors have been proved to be excellent candidates but the electronics needs a substantial improvement. Because of the high radiation level and the temperatures expected near the detector positions in the RNC, the electronics must be placed several meters away. A novel Fast Charge Amplifier (FCA) was developed that, connected to a diamond detector using several tens of meters of low capacitance coaxial cable, is able to produce fast output signals suitable to be processed by digital electronics. These fast output signals allow to operate at high count rates avoiding pile-up problems. This novel amplifier connected to a digitizer is here tested in the neutron energy range from 5 to 20.5 MeV using the mono-energetic neutrons produced by the Van de Graaff (VdG) accelerator of the EC-JRC-IRMM and by the PTB cyclotron. From the measurements the experimental response functions of the diamond detector at different neutron energies were obtained. The shape of the response functions have been compared with that predicted with a routine which was implemented for the Monte Carlo code MCNPX with the scope to validate the calculations versus the experimental data. The goal is to develop a tool which allows to calculate the diamond detector response functions also in term of absolute efficiency. This methodology along with the ability to measure at high reaction rates and the insensitivity to radiation damage launches the system described in this paper as a promising method for neutron spectrometry in the RNC of ITER.     

Droplet deposition measurement with high-speed camera and novel high-speed liquid film sensor with high spatial resolution

A sensor based on the electrical conductance method is presented for the measurement of dynamic liquid films in two-phase flow. The so called liquid film sensor consists of a matrix with 64 × 16 measuring points, a spatial resolution of 3.12 mm and a time resolution of 10 kHz. Experiments in a horizontal co-current air-water film flow were conducted to test the capability of the sensor to detect droplet deposition from the gas core onto the liquid film. The experimental setup is equipped with the liquid film sensor and a high speed camera (HSC) recording the droplet deposition with a sampling rate of 10 kHz simultaneously. In some experiments the recognition of droplet deposition on the sensor is enhanced by marking the droplets with higher electrical conductivity. The comparison between the HSC and the sensor shows, that the sensor captures the droplet deposition above a certain droplet diameter. The impacts of droplet deposition can be filtered from the wavy structures respectively conductivity changes of the liquid film using a filter algorithm based on autoregression. The results will be used to locally measure droplet deposition e.g. in the proximity of spacers in a subchannel geometry.     

细胞样品的高分辨率软X射线接触显微术图像的研究

在建立适于软Ｘ射线接触显微术（ＳＸＣＭ）观察细胞样品制备方法的基础上，以培养的肿瘤细胞为生物样品，应用细聚焦软Ｘ射线光源进行ＳＸＣＭ研究，获得了分辨率优于２８ｎｍ的高质量肿瘤细胞ＳＸＣＭ图像。     

First direct-write lithography results on the Guelph high resolution proton microprobe

The recently completed high-resolution proton microprobe at the University of Guelph is Canada’s first one-micron nuclear microprobe, which represents the country’s state-of-the-art technology for various nuclear microprobe applications, e.g. direct-write microlithography. Its probe-forming system is comprised of a triplet Oxford Micro beams magnetic quadrupole lenses, along with high-precision objective slits. High energy protons coming off a 3 MV particle accelerator can achieve a nominal resolution of one micro and a beam current of several hundred of picoamperes when arriving at the target. This proton probe is ideal for the use of direct-write lithography with the incorporation of a magnetic scanning system and motorized sample stage.Preliminary lithography results have been obtained using spin-coated PMMA photoresist as specimen. The beam spot size, beam range and straggling inside the substrate and the exposure conditions are investigated by using scanning electron microscopy. This facility is the first in Canada to perform focused direct-write ion beam lithography, which is ideal for modification and machining of polymer and semiconductor materials for biological, microfluidic and ultimate lab-on-chip applications.     

On the design of a monolithic 4-bounce high resolution X-ray monochromator

A monolithic monochromator (+n, −n, −m, +m) made of a single block of Ge crystal designed for CoK_α1 radiation was developed and tested numerically and experimentally by means of X-ray diffraction. The advantage of monolithic devices is their mechanical stability and the alignment of such optics is much easier than with polylithic optics, but the development of these devices is rather demanding. The presented monochromator belongs to a group of coplanar in-line devices, which means that the input beam is parallel with the output beam. For the estimation of the spectral and angular properties of a diffracted beam of this monochromator (such as bandpass width, output divergence and input acceptance) we used a numerical approach which we call spectral-angular function. It takes into account both the vertical and the horizontal divergence of the input radiation and uses two-beam X-ray dynamical theory of diffraction. Experimentally, the monochromator was tested by means of X-ray diffraction (synchrotron radiation testing) and the results from this characterization are presented. The influence of the vertical divergence on the spectral distribution of the diffracted beam is discussed and compared with previously published analytical results.     

Reconstruction of core axial power shapes using the alternating conditional expectation algorithm

We have introduced the alternating conditional expectation (ACE) algorithm in reconstructing 20-node axial core power shapes from five-level in-core detector powers. The core design code, Reactor Operation and Control Simulation (ROCS), calculates 3-dimensional power distributions for various core states, and the reference core-averaged axial power shapes and corresponding simulated detector powers are utilized to synthesize the axial power shape. By using the ACE algorithm, the optimal relationship between a dependent variable, the plane power, and independent variables, five detector powers, is determined without any preprocessing. A total of ∼3490 data sets per each cycle of YongGwang Nuclear (YGN) power plant units 3 and 4 is used for the regression. Continuous analytic function corresponding to each optimal transformation is calculated by simple regression model. The reconstructed axial power shapes of ∼21,200 cases are compared to the original ROCS axial power shapes. Also, to test the validity and accuracy of the new method, its performance is compared with that of the Fourier fitting method (FFM), a typical method of the deterministic approach. For a total of 21,204 data cases, the averages of root mean square (rms) error, axial peak error (ΔF_z), and axial shape index error (ΔASI) of new method are calculated as 0.81%, 0.51% and 0.00204, while those of FFM are 2.29%, 2.37% and 0.00264, respectively. We also evaluated the wide range of axial power profiles from the xenon-oscillation. The results show that the newly developed method is far superior to FFM; average rms and axial peak error are just ∼35 and ∼20% of those of FFM, respectively. ©     

一种基于SiPM的具有高能量分辨率的紧凑型溴化镧γ谱仪

基于光电倍增管(photomultiplier tube,简称PMT)的LaBr₃:Ceγ谱仪具有比Na I(Tl)γ谱仪更高的能量分辨率,但具有体积大、对磁场敏感、需要高电压等缺点。硅光电倍增管(Silicon photomultiplier tube,简称Si PM)具有与PMT相近的增益和效率,同时具有诸如高定时分辨率、抗磁场能力强、低偏压和紧凑尺寸等优良特性。本文将LaBr₃:Ce晶体与SiPM阵列耦合,设计研制基于Si PM的紧凑型LaBr₃:Ceγ谱仪,通过降噪、优化工作电压等措施改善SiPM的缺点对γ谱仪性能的影响。工作电压的噪声会导致能量分辨率发生恶化,通过设计无源滤波电路CLCπ型滤波器,利用其对直/交流阻抗的不同特性,滤除高频纹波,工作电压的信噪比从未降噪前的62.6 d B提高到74.64 dB;能量分辨率最优值对应于表示暗噪声、串扰、光电探测效率和SiPM增益之间折衷的最佳工作电压。通过实验给出不同工作电压下的能量分辨率,确定最佳工作电压为54.8 V,该电压下的能量分辨率为3.06%(@662 ...     

时间触发系统用PMT性能测试研究

通过基于Windows XP环境的VME数据获取系统,对MRPC束流实验中时间触发系统(T0)的光电倍增管(PMT)进行性能测试研究.从精确测试获取的PMT单光电子峰的角度出发,依据电荷谱的能量分辨率、峰谷比值、增益等条件确定PMT合适的工作高压.依据时间和幅度信息的匹配关系,对不同入射光子的数据进行挑选,进而改善测试数据的时间分辨.     

The design of a versatile scanning proton microprobe of high resolution and efficiency

The designer of a scanning proton (or nuclear) microprobe must make many decisions, some of which may be compromises. There is a wide range of lens types and configurations. Microprobe performance will depend on performance of the accelerator and its ion source, on stability and control of the lens current supply, on the nature of the microprobe supports, on the vacuum system, on magnetic shielding and connection to the accelerator.There are many possible modes of observation and analysis to be considered when the specimen chamber is designed and a versatile chamber should make provision for most of them. They include optical microscopy of front and back surfaces of the specimen, secondary electron imaging, X-Ray imaging, channelling contrast microscopy, Rutherford backscattering and forward scattering, nuclear reaction analysis and scanning transmission ion microscopy in brightfield and darkfield modes.Microprobe performance will also inevitably depend on the ease of operation and the extent to which the operator has been considered in the overall design and layout of the microprobe. The equally important considerations involved in data collection and analysis are discussed in a second paper.     

A new linear array detector for high resolution and low dose digital radiography

At the Department of Physics of the University of Bologna a new intensified linear array detector is under development. The core of the system is a digital intensified CCD camera, the electron bombarded charge coupled device (EBCCD). The main innovation is a coherent rectangular-to-linear fiber optics adapter coupling the 1 in. diameter photocathode of the camera with a linear 129 mm × 1.45 mm strip of Gd₂O₂S:Tb. In this way a high spatial resolution over an extended length is obtained. The detector works as an X-ray scanner by means of a high-precision translation mechanical device to inspect a 13 cm × 18 cm area. A complete characterisation of the system has been made in terms of linearity, dynamic range, modulation transfer function (MTF), noise power spectrum (NPS) and detective quantum efficiency (DQE). At last, radiographic tests on a set of samples have been made and will be presented.     

CARR堆HRPD谱仪垂直聚焦单色器的选取和强度增益计算

垂直聚焦单色器技术是提高样品位置中子强度的有效手段。本文应用蒙特卡罗模拟方法对中国先进研究堆（CARR）旁高分辨中子粉末衍射仪（HRPD）的垂直聚焦单色器进行了优化选取，得到了垂直聚焦单色器高度，聚焦曲率半径和倾角等参数值，计算了使用垂直聚焦单色器相对于平板单色器的强度增益和样品处聚焦束尺寸。     

Simulation of a new hybrid MPGD with improved time resolution and decreased discharge probabilities using Garfield++

In this work,a new hybrid MPGD consisting of two GEM foils and a metallic mesh was proposed.Based on the simulation studies,this design can significantly reduce the rise time of signal and has a better performance in respect of particle identification compared with the triple GEM design.The gain with various voltages setting was computed in order to provide us references for future experiment.The simulation results also show that the time and space resolution compared to the triple GEM detector are also improved.The time and space resolution of hybrid detector with Ar/CO2(70/30) and Ar/isobutane(95/5) were investigated for various drift electric field intensities.This new hybrid detector shows excellent potential for both fundamental research and imaging applications.     

Micro-PIXE and quantitative cathodoluminescence spectroscopy: Combined high resolution trace element analyses in minerals

We combined high resolution Cathodoluminescence (CL)-spectroscopy and micro-PIXE to study the correlation of the activator concentration and the CL-intensity. Based on these results the Quantitative High Resolution Spectral analysis of Cathodoluminescence (QHRS-CL) is developed. Micro-PIXE and the new method (QHRS-CL) have been used to investigate trace elements in minerals. Using micro-PIXE and related methods the crystal lattice site and charge state of the analysed elements cannot be determined. This can be analysed exactly by using QHRS-CL. So the combination of micro-PIXE and QHRS-CL is a powerful tool for analysing trace element concentration above 100 ppb, the charge state and the lattice site of these elements in crystal structures.     

Implementation and performance of an optical motion tracking systemfor high resolution brain PET imaging

Head motion during PET scanning is widely regarded as a source of image degradation and resolution loss. Recent improvements in the spatial resolution of state-of-the-art tomographs may be compromised by patient motion during scanning, as these high resolution data will be increasingly susceptible to smaller movements of the head. The authors have developed an opto-electronic motion tracking system based on commercially-available technology that is capable of very accurate real-time measurements of the position and orientation of the patient's head. These positions are transformed to the reference frame of the PET scanner, and could potentially be used to provide motion correction of list-mode emission data on an event-by-event basis