Gratings for Phase Contrast X-ray Imaging

Purpose and goal

The aim of the project was to show the technical potential and the possibility of production of large gratings in large volumes with Scint-X gratings compared to the gratings used today in research. This have been shown by the manufacturing of prototypes and equipment with capacity for products of commercial size and volumes.

Expected results and effects

During the project we have sold prototypes with the right technical specification to a large presumtive customer, world leading in PC/DFI on human lungs. We have had equipment manufactured specifically for this application and we have shown that our processes can be scaled up to full size prototypes. We have also shown that our cost estimations are in the right order of magnitude and that these gratings can be produced to a cost that makes PC/DFI commercially viable. The expectations are for this to continue to a couple of development systems and then hopefully to production.

Planned approach and implementation

To the largest part the project has proceeded according to plan. It took longer than anticipated to get the furnace up and running and to get the silicon substrates processed, but we made up for the lost time by re planning the silicon substrates with more wafers and more designs developed in parallell.