• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Medical Physics Conference
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• 2002.09a
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• pp.407-410
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• 2002

Monochromatic x-ray CT has several advantages over conventional CT, which utilizes bremsstrahlung white x-rays from an x-ray tube. There are several methods to produce such monochromatic x-rays. The most popular one is crystal diffraction monochromatization, which has been commonly used because of the fact that the energy spread is very narrow and the energy can be changed continuously. The alternative method is the use of fluorescent x-ray, which has several advantages such as large beam size and fast energy change. We have developed a parallel-beam and a fan-beam monochromatic x-ray CT, and compared some characteristics such as accuracy of CT numbers between those systems. The fan beam monochromatic x-rays were generated by irradiating target materials by incident white x-rays from a bending magnet beam line NE5 in 6.5 GeV Accumulation Ring at Tukuba. The parallel beam monochromatic x-rays were generated by using a silicon double crystal monochromator at the bending magnet beam line BL-20BM in Spring-8. A Cadmium telluride (CdTe) 256 channel array detector with 512mm sensitive width capable of operating at room temperature was used in the photon counting mode. A cylindrical phantom containing eight concentrations of gadolinium was used for the fan beam monochromatic x-ray CT system, while a phantom containing acetone, ethanol, acrylic and water was used for the parallel monochromatic x-ray CT system. The linear attenuation coefficients obtained from CT numbers of those monochromatic x-ray CT images were compared with theoretical values. They showed a good agreement within 3%. It was found that the quantitative measurement can be possible by using the fan beam monochromatic x-ray CT system as well as a parallel beam monochromatic X-ray CT system.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Medical Physics Conference
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• 2002.09a
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• pp.411-414
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• 2002

The CdTe semiconductor detector has a higher detection efficiency for x-rays and $\square$amma rays and a wider energy band gap compared with Si and Ge semiconductor detectors. Therefore, the size of the detector element can be made small, and can be operated at room temperature. The interaction between a CdTe detector and incident x-rays is mainly photoelectric absorption in the photon energy range of up to 100 keV. In this energy range, Compton effects are almost negligible. We have developed a 256 channel CdTe array detector system for monochromatic x-ray CT using synchrotron radiation. The CdTe array detector system, the element size of which is 1.98 mm (h) x 1.98 mm (w) x 0.5 mm (t), was operated in photon counting mode. In order to improve the spatial resolution, we tilted the CdTe array detector against the incident parallel monochromatic x-ray beam. The experiments were performed at the BL20B2 experimental hutch in SPring-8. The energy of incident monochromatic x-rays was set at 55 keV. Phantom measurements were performed at the detector angle of 0, 30 and 45 degrees against the incident parallel monochromatic x-rays. The linear attenuation coefficients were calculated from the reconstructed CT images. By increasing the detector angle, the spatial resolutions were improved. There was no significant difference between the linear attenuation coefficients which were corrected by the detector angle. It was found that this method was useful for improving the spatial resolution in a parallel monochromatic x-ray CT system.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.61-70
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• 2012

In this study, a simple post-reconstruction dual-energy computed tomography (CT) method is proposed. A dual-energy CT algorithm for monochromatic x-rays was adopted and applied to the dual-energy CT of polychromatic x-rays by assigning a representative mono-energy. The accuracy of algorithm implementation was tested with mathematical phantoms. To test the sensitivity of this algorithm to the inaccuracy of representative energy value in energy values, a simulation study was performed with mathematical phantom. To represent a polychromatic x-ray energy spectrum with a single-energy, mean energy and equivalent energy were used, and the results were compared. The feasibility of the proposed method was experimentally tested with two different micro-CTs and a test phantom made of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), water, and graphite. The dual-energy calculations were carried out with CT images of all possible energy pairs among 40, 50, 60, 70, and 80 kVp. The effective atomic number and the electron density values obtained from the proposed method were compared with theoretical values. The results showed that, except the errors in the effective atomic number of graphite, most of the errors were less than 10 % for both CT scanners, and for the combination of 60 kVp and 70 kVp, errors less than 6.0 % could be achieved with a Polaris 90 CT. The proposed method shows simplicity of calibration, demonstrating its practicality and feasibility for use with a general polychromatic CT.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.669-670
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• 2004

• Restorative Dentistry and Endodontics
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.98-107
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• 2011

Caries remains prevalent throughout modern society and is the main disease in the field of dentistry. Although studies of this disease have used diverse methodology, recently, X-ray microtomography has gained popularity as a non-destructive, 3-dimensional (3D) analytical technique, and has several advantages over the conventional methods. According to X-ray source, it is classified as monochromatic or polychromatic with the latter being more widely used due to the high cost of the monochromatic source despite some advantages. The determination of mineral density profiles based on changes in X-ray attenuation is the principle of this method and calibration and image processing procedures are needed for the better image and reproducible measurements. Using this tool, 3D reconstruction is also possible and it enables to visualize the internal structures of dental caries. With the advances in the computer technology, more diverse applications are being studied, such automated caries assessment algorithms.