Microscopic x-ray luminescence computed tomography

X-ray luminescence computed tomography (XLCT) was emerged as a new hybrid imaging modality, in which the x-rays are used to excite phosphors emitting optical photons to be measured for imaging. In this paper, we reported a microscopic x-ray luminescence computed tomography (microXLCT) with a spatial resolution up to hundreds of micrometers for deep targets. We use a superfine x-ray pencil beam to scan the phosphor targets. The superfine x-ray pencil beam is generated by a small collimator mounted in front of a powerful x-ray tube (93212, Oxford Instrument). A CT detector is used to image the x-ray beam. We have generated an x-ray beam with a diameter of 192 micrometers with a collimator of 100 micrometers in diameter. The emitted optical photons on the top surface of phantom are reflected by a mirror and acquired by an electron multiplier charge-coupled device (EMCCD) camera (C9100-13, Hamamatsu Photonics). The microXLCT imaging system is built inside an x-ray shielding and light tight cabinet. The EMCCD camera is placed in a lead box. All the imaging components are controlled by a VC++ program. The optical photon propagation is modeled with the diffusion equation solved by the finite element method. We have applied different regularization methods including L2 and L1 in the microXLCT reconstruction algorithms. Numerical simulations and phantom experiments are used to validate the microXLCT imaging system.