Manuel Dierick

UGCT: the new CT facility of the Ghent University (Belgium)

TheUGCTX-ray tomography facility is a cooperation between theRadiation Physics research group (Department of Subatomic and Radiation Physics, Ghent University) and the Sedimentary Geology and Engineering Geology research group (Department of Geology and Soil Science, Ghent University). The facility operates a number of setups offering a wide range of spatial resolutions, X-ray energies and sample sizes. First there is a state-of-the-art transmission typeX-ray tubewith sub-micron focal spot size (900 nm) for extreme-high resolution CT with resolutions down to 1micron for samples up to 4 mm diameter. Secondly a high-power water-cooled X-ray tube is available with an energy between 30 and 160 keV for regular micro-CT applications with resolutions down to 3micron. For large and/or heavy samples up to 40 cm diameter, a dedicated beamline is available at the linear electron accelerator with high-energy X-rays up to 10MeV. The setups are built in room-size bunkers, allowing flexible experimental conditions such as conditioned environments or experimental equipment for real-time sample conditioning. In addition the facility also operates a desktop micro-CT scanner from Skyscan (model 1072) and a medical CT scanner from Philips (Tomoscan SR5000) for particular applications. The facility has several detectors available which are suited for the various applications. For nanoandmicro-CT imaging, a high-resolution 16 bit CCD camera (4K x 2.7K 9μ pixels, 1:1 fiber-optic coupling) and a 12 bit flat panel CMOS detector (1024x512 50μ pixels) are available. For high-speed applications a 6’’ large-field image intensifier can be used. For high-energy applications, a 1Kx1K CCD camera is used which is lens-coupled to a large scintillator that is optimized for high energies. m26.o01