Luca Serafini (INFN Milano)
X-ray imaging is an invaluable diagnostic tool in emerging physical and medical applications. Last generation synchrotron light sources offer highly brilliant and monochromatic X-ray beams but their size, location and beam time availability pose important constraints to their use.
The availability of energy-tunable, monochromatic X-ray beams produced in compact sources of moderate cost and space requirements would boost a remarkable progress thanks to the possibility of installing them in limited size Clinical Laboratories or in Universities. Photon beam properties like energy tunability and sharp collimation, very appealing for applications presently available at large synchrotron light facilities, would be enhanced by the high degree of coherence provided by the proposed source adding powerful diagnostic tools in radiological diagnostics and Biomedical Imaging.
The proposed light source is based on the Inverse Compton Scattering (ICS) process where an intense electron beam interacts with photons emitted by a power laser generating highly collimated X-ray beams. Two main advantages of this source as compared to large synchrotrons, namely the compactness and the much higher photon energy attainable with lower electron energies will be addressed and examples of application in Biomedical Imaging will be illustrated. Such a facility could be installed in the Bologna metropolitan area where excellence centers in medical research are present.