The neutron micro-tomography setup at PSI and its use for research purposes and engineering applications

A new setup for stationary neutron imaging with highest possible resolution, based on the light detection from a neutron-sensitive scintillator screen with a dedicated lens coupled to a cooled CCD was completed recently. Although, some first test results have already been reported (E.H. Lehmann, et al., Nucl. Instr. and Meth. A 576(2-3) (2007) 389), its utilization for research and industry applications in both radiography and tomography is now the topic of this paper. It was an important step forward to extend the method towards tomography, where the 3D volume of the object is obtained from projections via a reconstruction algorithm. This enables one to study samples with 13.5 mu m voxel size, when the dimensions are within a 27 mm range. In a scanning mode, even larger samples can be investigated with the same inherent resolution. The presentation will describe the technique of the system, its performance parameters and is focused on examples of studies in several fields like wood research, biology and industrial applications. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.