The impact of tube voltage on the erosion of rotating x-ray anodes.

Background: The permitted input power density of rotating anode x-ray sources is limited by the performance of available target materials. The commonly used simplified formulas for the focal spot surface temperature ignore the tube voltage despite its variation in clinical practice. Improved modeling of electron transport and target erosion, as proposed in this work, improves the prediction of x-ray output degradation by target erosion, the absolute x-ray dose output and the quality of diagnostic imaging and orthovolt cancer therapy for a wide range of technique factors.

A compact X-ray source via fast microparticle streams.

The spatiotemporal resolution of diagnostic X-ray images is limited by the erosion and rupture of conventional stationary and rotating anodes of X-ray tubes from extreme density of input power and thermal cycling of the anode material. Conversely, detector technology has developed rapidly. Finer detector pixels demand improved output from brilliant keV-type X-ray sources with smaller X-ray focal spots than today and would be available to improve the efficacy of medical imaging.

On a new multi-source X-ray tube concept for minimizing imaging time in digital breast tomosynthesis.

Replacing moving mechanics in computed tomography (CT) and digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) has inspired numerous projects to develop alternative X-ray sources. While less suitable for CT, DBT is a viable target application for the multi-X-ray-source array tube suggested in Becker, A.E.

X-ray sources: 125 years of developments of this intriguing technology.

Why took it nearly four decades, from the first evidence of artificial creation of bremsstrahlung, noted indirectly in literature in 1857 by Julius Pluecker, Professor of mathematics and physics in Bonn, Germany, to Professor Conrad Wilhelm Roentgen's breaking discovery and announcement of X-rays in 1895? Following introductory remarks on the difficulties adjusting the parameters required to generate X-rays and the way medical X-rays occupied clinical routine after Roentgen's revolutionary discovery, and answering the question at the beginning, this paper will discuss in depth the paths taken for improvement up to the present, and some of the culs-de-sac.