Noll (2006) X-ray Notes 1: Page 1

X-Ray Notes, Part I

X-ray Imaging
Images are characterized by the interaction of x-ray photons and tissue.

Physics
Definition: Radiation – a stream of particles or photons.
Particles: α (2+He), e- (electrons), β (electrons emitted from nuclei),
β+ (positrons), p+ (proton), n0 (neutrons)
Photons: x-ray, γ, annihilation photons, etc.

Models for interaction of radiation and matter:

1. Absorption (generally low kinetic energy (KE))

2. Scattering

3. Not a typical interaction – a gradual loss of energy

The charged particles above (α, e-, β, β+, p+) interact very strongly with tissue and
typically do not pass completely through the human body and thus cannot be used for
imaging. Of the above particles photons and neutrons(n0) pass through the body with an
appropriate amount of interaction for imaging (too little is also bad).

Behavior of Radiation Along a Line

Assumptions:
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1. Matter consists of discrete particles separated by distances that are large compared to
the size of the particles.
2. For a given path length along a line, an x-ray photon either interacts (with prob. p) or
it doesn’t and all interactions are independent.
3. Scattered photons scatter at a different angle and don’t contribute to the continuing
flux of photons along the line.

The change in the number of photons is:

dN ∝ − N ( x)dx
dN = − μN ( x)dx
dN
= − μN ( x)
dx
⎛ x ⎞
N ( x) = N (0) exp⎜⎜ − ∫ μ ( x' )dx' ⎟⎟
⎝ 0 ⎠
were μ is the “linear attenuation coefficient” and has units (distance)-1. For a constant μ:
N ( x) = N (0) exp(− μx )

The Basic X-ray Imaging System

Now consider a parallel ray x-ray flux that has intensity I0 (intensity is photons/unit
area/unit time) the passes through a 3D object having a distribution of attenuation
coefficients μ(x,y,z) and projects to an image Id(x,y):
Noll (2006) X-ray Notes 1: Page 3

(
I d ( x, y ) = I 0 exp − ∫ μ ( x, y, z )dz )
Generation of x-rays

- Target is usually a high-Z, heavy element – typically W, tungsten.

- Electrons are accelerated by the voltage between the cathode and the anode.
- A potential energy of E=qΔv (e.g. e * 150 kV = 150 keV) all gets converted to kinitic
energy E = ½ mev2 (e.g. also 150 keV).
Kinds of electron interactions:
a. Inelastic (energy absorbing) scattering with atomic electrons – the ejection of a bound
electron followed by emission of a photons from spontaneous energy state transitions.

The Bohr model accounts for absorption/generation of discrete valued energies.

58.5 keV is one “characteristic” x-ray for W. Any combination of shell transition
energies will also be characteristic energies (e.g. 3.2 and 61.7 keV). Very low energies
are hard to observe due to other absorption processes.
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b. Bremsstrahlung “Braking” Radiation – Acceleration (change in direction) of electron

by Coulomb attraction to the large, positively charged nucleus leads to the generation
of photons (acceleration of any charged particle will do this).

For electrons of a particular energy, E, striking an infinitely thin target, Bremsstrahlung

radiation will have a uniform distribution of energy between 0 and E.

We assume that all electrons interact. For a thick target, it is often modeled as a series of
thin targets where the highest energy impinging upon subsequent stages is reduced by the
interactions. Each thin target produces a new uniform spectrum, but with a lower peak
energy. The resultant spectrum is approximately linear from a peak at 0 keV to 0 at E.
Noll (2006) X-ray Notes 1: Page 5

The x-ray Spectrum

- For electrons with energy E, the maximum x-ray photon energy is E.
hc
- E = hυ =
λ
- Very low energy photons are absorbed by the target and by the glass in the x-ray tube.
- Spectrum will have a combination of Bohr (discrete) energies and Bremsstrahlung
radiation:

- The x-ray spectrum is function of photon energy: I0 = I0(E)

- I now represents energy/unit time/unit area or power/unit area.

Practical x-ray tube

Why Tungsten?
- x-ray spectrum in desired range
- High Z (high efficiency in stopping electrons)
- High melting point (3300 deg. C) – typical operation temp is ~2500 deg. C – this is
due to the low efficiency of the electron to x-ray conversion (~0.8%). The rest goes
into heat.
- Example:

- Rotation of target to reduce peak temp

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- Shielding to collimate beam

- Window further filters x-ray spectrum (“hardens beam” – makes it have a higher
average E)

The Attenuation Coefficient

We say above that the x-ray spectrum is a function of photon energy E: I0 = I0(E). The
attenuation function is also a function of E: μ = μ(x,y,z,E). The new expression for the
intensity at the output will not be:
( )
I d ( x, y ) = ∫ I 0 ( E ) exp − ∫ μ ( x, y, z , E )dz dE
E

Note: Id tells us nothing about z or E – it only gives us x,y information.

The x-ray attenuation coefficient μ is, of course, also a function of material properties.
Two of the most important properties that affect the attenuation coefficient are tissue
density, ρ, and the atomic number Z. As most x-ray photon/tissue interactions are
photon/electron interactions both ρ and Z will influence μ.

For x-ray photons, there are 4 main types of interactions (listed in order of increasing
likelihood with increasing photon energy, E):
1. Rayleigh-Thompson Scattering
2. Photoelectric Absorption
3. Compton Scattering
4. Pair Production

In general, we can write an expression for the attenuation coefficient as the some of these
constiuent parts:
μ ( E ) = μ rt ( E ) + μ pe ( E ) + μ cs ( E ) + μ pp ( E ) +…
1. Rayleigh-Thompson Scattering or “coherent” scattering – atomic absorption with
spontaneous emission at the same energy E. This is the same effect as is seen in x-ray
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diffraction in crystals. This term is rarely important in the diagnostic energy range
(50-200 keV).

2. Photoelectric Absorption – Absorption of photon to ionize and eject an atomic

electron. The ejected electron will have an kinetic energy of the photon energy less
the binding energy of the electron.

The photoelectric effect increases rapidly with atomic number, Z, and with decreasing
energy. The photoelectric effect dominates μ in the lower part of the diagnostic
spectrum.

For high Z materials (e.g. Lead, Iodine, Tungsten), the shell energy boundaries are
evident in the μ vs. E plots. When the energy gets high enough to make that shell’s
electrons available to the PE effect (when E exceeds the binding energy), then the
probability of a PE interaction increases.

3. Compton Scattering – scatting of photons by an elastic collision with a free electron.

Elastic collisions preserve E and momentum (p). For loosely bound electrons or very
high energy photons, the equations for free electrons hold reasonably well.
Noll (2006) X-ray Notes 1: Page 8

Unknowns: φ, θ, E’, K.E.

Conservation of energy:
K.E. = E – E’ = (m – m0)c2
m0
where m = is the relativistic mass of the electron
1 − v2 / c2
Just a check on this equation … for v2 << c2, then

(m − m0 )c 2 = m(1 − 1 − v 2 / c 2 )c 2
.
1 v2 2 1 2
≈ m(1 − (1 − ))c = mv
2 c2 2
Conservation of momentum in x and y directions:
E E'
= cos θ + mv cos φ
c c

E'
sin θ = mv sin φ
c
solving these equations we get the energy of the scattered photon:
E
E' =
E
1+ (1 − cos θ )
Ee
where Ee = m0c2 = 511 keV, the rest energy of an electron.

Comments:
- For E << Ee, there is very little change in energy with angle.
- For higher E:
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- For low E, scatter is essentially isotropic in angle

- For higher E, scatter is preferentially forward scattered (where there is very
little change in photon E).
- It is very hard to discriminate between forward scattered photons and
unimpeded photons based on energy.
- μcs is nearly constant across diagnostic spectrum
- Compton scatter comes mostly from atomic electrons (μcs is proportional to ρ)
- At higher E, Compton scatter dominates over the PE effect (most important
effect in x-ray imaging).

4. Pair Production – the spontaneous creation of an electron/positron pair:

In this interaction, photon energy in transferred to mass energy in the electron and
positron. Since the rest energy of each is 511 keV, pair production cannot occur for
x-ray photons below 1022 keV (not in the diagnostic spectrum). Positrons will
wander around until they bump into an electron, which will result in mutual
annihilation and the emission of two 511 keV photons:

The ejected photons from a positron/electron annihilation is the basis for positron
emission tomography [more on this later].
Noll (2006) X-ray Notes 1: Page 10

Total Linear attenuation coefficient for photons

Again, the combined coefficient is:
μ ( E ) = μ rt ( E ) + μ pe ( E ) + μ cs ( E ) + μ pp ( E ) +…
For example, the combined coefficient for lead is:

An alternate to linear attenuation coefficient is the “mass attenuation coefficient” which

is defined as:
τ = μ / ρ (units: cm2/gm)
This parameter is convenient when describing the behavior of composite materials with N
constituent components:
N
1
τ=
M
∑mτ
i =1
i i

where mi are the masses of the components and M is the total mass.

Beam Hardening
Because the attenuation spectrum is not uniform across the diagnostic energy spectrum,
the output spectrum will have a different intensity distribution than the input spectrum,
I0(E).

If we split an object into several smaller parts, and look at then energy spectrum at for
each part:
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we will find that the mean energy:

E=
∫ EI ( E )dE
∫ I ( E )dE
will increase (get harder) as we move through the object:
E0 < E1 < E2 < ... < En .
For medical imaging, this has the unfortunate consequence that a particular tissue type
will have a μ that changes as a function of position along the path.

In particular, as we move deeper into the object, we will find that there is less attentuation
than expected, given the initial spectrum, I0(E).

One solution is to make the beam “hard” to begin with. This is often accomplished by
filtering out the low E photons with a thin metal plate (often use aluminum).