Spherical inertial electrostatic confinement device as a tunable x-ray source
First Claim
1. A device for generating wave-length tunable x-rays comprising:
- cathode means comprising a spherical vacuum vessel;
anode means comprising a highly transparent spherical grid defining a central spherical volume, said anode means being centrally disposed within said cathode means;
electron means comprising a plurality of electron emitter/extractor assemblies placed symmetrically near an internal surface of said cathode means for emitting electrons into said vessel;
means for creating a negative atmospheric pressure in said spherical vacuum vessel;
means for circulating electrons emitted by said electron emitter assemblies a plurality of times through a central region formed at the center of said spherical vacuum vessel;
means for focusing and converging high energy electrons in said central region;
means for applying an electric potential to said anode means whereby the potential between the anode and cathode means causes the electrons to accelerate towards the anode means, the increased energy electrons interacting with idle electrons in said central region thereby producing x-rays, whereby electrons at different energy levels produce x-rays at correspondingly different wave-lengths.
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Abstract
A low cost small-scale tunable X-ray source, comprising a spherical-electron injected inertial electrostatic confinement (IEC) device. Within a spherical containment vessel (402) recirculatory focusing electrons are accelerated by a spherical grid (401) within the vessel, and cause electron—electron collisions in a dense, central plasma core region (404) of the sphere. The IEC synchrotron source (IEC-SS) in a mechanism for generating tunable X-ray radiation is essentially equivalent to that for conventional synchrotron sources. The IEC-SS operates at a much lower electron energy (<100 kev compared with >200 Mev in a synchrotron), but still gives the same X-ray energy due to the small-scale bending radius associated with the electron—electron interactions. The X-rays can be filtered for particular purposes using diffraction gratings, prisms or the like.
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Citations
26 Claims
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1. A device for generating wave-length tunable x-rays comprising:
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cathode means comprising a spherical vacuum vessel;
anode means comprising a highly transparent spherical grid defining a central spherical volume, said anode means being centrally disposed within said cathode means;
electron means comprising a plurality of electron emitter/extractor assemblies placed symmetrically near an internal surface of said cathode means for emitting electrons into said vessel;
means for creating a negative atmospheric pressure in said spherical vacuum vessel;
means for circulating electrons emitted by said electron emitter assemblies a plurality of times through a central region formed at the center of said spherical vacuum vessel;
means for focusing and converging high energy electrons in said central region;
means for applying an electric potential to said anode means whereby the potential between the anode and cathode means causes the electrons to accelerate towards the anode means, the increased energy electrons interacting with idle electrons in said central region thereby producing x-rays, whereby electrons at different energy levels produce x-rays at correspondingly different wave-lengths. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26)
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Specification