Ghost imaging is a technique with the potential to reduce radiation exposure.
Here are seven things to know.
1. A team of physicists in China used ghost imaging to make detailed X-ray images by connecting a single-pixel camera to a patterned light source, Science magazine reports.
2. Ghost imaging works by illuminating an object with light that has passed through a filter with a known pattern, according to University of Glasgow in Scotland physicist Miles Padgett, PhD. On the other side of the object, a single-pixel camera takes a picture; in order to end up with an image, however, this must be done thousands of times, swapping out the filter pattern for a different one after each exposure.
3. The research team used a piece of sandpaper, which is partly transparent to X-rays, which they rotated to create a different pattern after each exposure.
4. A computer programmed to know the filter pattern for each exposure produced the final image. It calculated the image from variations in the sequence of gray pixels the camera captures.
5. For ghost imaging to be viable in medicine, it must demonstrate that the total X-ray dose needed to produce an image is lower than with a conventional X-ray system. One ghost image requires thousands of exposures, but the X-ray intensity per exposure can be made low.
6. Making a computer-programmable filter for X-rays poses a challenge because X-rays stream through most material. According to Dr. Padgett, however, a commercial X-ray system could use pre-recorded patterns, so only the manufacturer would need the high-resolution camera and individual users could use a single-pixel camera.
7. The researchers successfully used ghost imaging with a much higher contrast-to-noise ratio compared to projection X-ray imaging at the same low-radiation dose, according to a study in Optica. They achieved ultra-low-flux imaging, which has the potential to reduce radiation damage.
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