Physics Flashcards
cathode
negative charge (electrons flow from)
anode
positive charge (electrons move to)
multiphase generators
reduces ripple effect of AC current (overlaps several waves)
- makes peaks = kVp (peaks)
Bremsstrahlung
- increases with accelerating voltage (kV) and anode atomic number (Z)
characteristic radiation
incoming e- ejects inner shell e-
- must exceed binding energy (only K shell is important)
- 5-10% of total usually
all targets produce characteristic radiation just below 20 keV, why?
k-edge filtering
how can you get more characteristic radiation
lower Z anode (Mo in mammo)
- get 25% characteristic (max contrast = mono-energetic spectrum)
x ray filter
stops low energy photons = reduces dose
inherent filtration
glass exit window on the tube
added filtration
preferential filtering at lower energies
- mean energy shits UP (shifts to the right) = increasing QUALITY, decrease QUANTITY (decrease dose)
K-edge filtering
filter material just about the k-edge of the target to kill higher energy keV photons
- makes spectrum narrower
- emphasize characteristic peaks
- both improve contrast
photoelectric absorption
totally absorbed
Compton scattering
lose part of energy and change direction
Photoelectric interaction
- incoming photon hits tight inner shell
- photon is totally absorbed (photoelectron ejected)
- outer shell electron fills vacancy = emits characteristic “fluorescent” x ray
kedge depends on material, what is the k edge of Iodine
33 keV
when do you get the best image contrast
when the beam spectrum matches the energy-dependent interaction inside the person
probability of photoelectric interactions
increased with increased Z
decreased with increased energy
compton scatter
photon hits loosely bound outer shell e-
- scatters in a new direction with less energy
- proportional to electron density
- falls off at higher energy
attenuation
Sum of all interactions in the patient
- went in and didn’t come out = photoelectric effect
- went in and didn’t get detected due to change in direction and energy = compton scatter
increase in energy does what to total attenuation
decrease in PE with about the same compton = decrease total attenuation
photoelectric effect dominates at what energies
lower energy
compton dominates at what energies
higher energy
linear attenuation coefficient (u)
fraction of incident photons lost from beam per distance unit
- Beer-Lambert law
half value layer
thickness of material that cuts the beam intensity in half
- increased energy -> increased HVL (need more stuff to stop beam)
- increased density of material -> decreased HVL (for same energy, need less stuff to stop it)