Novel digital K-edge imaging system with transition radiation from an 855-MeV electron beam

A novel K-edge imaging method has been developed at the Mainz Microtron MAMI aiming at a very efficient use of the transition radiation (TR) flux generated by the external 855-MeV electron beam in a foil stack. A fan-like quasi-monochromatic hard X-ray beam is produced from the /spl plusmn/1-mrad-wide TR cone with a highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) crystal. The absorption of the object in front of a 30 mm/spl times/10 mm pn charge-coupled device (pn-CCD) photon detector is measured at every pixel by a broad-band energy scan around the K-absorption edge. This is accomplished by a synchronous variation of the lateral crystal position and the electron beam direction which defines also…