Tabletop pulsed x-ray ghost imaging with a single-pixel detector

Although "ghost" imaging has seen remarkable advances since it was first studied 30 years ago, there have been few studies on x-ray ghost imaging (XGI) due to technical difficulties. A chief potential advantage of XGI is that imaging can be achieved with much lower radiation intensity. However, in previous XGI experiments with continuous wave x-ray illumination, the total sampling time was actually quite long, leading to additional radiation dose accumulation. In this paper, we report a proof-of-concept experiment using a high-sensitivity single-pixel detector together with a simple tabletop x-ray source followed by an adjustable mechanical shutter, which could reduce the total exposure time to as little as 5 ms. Imaging was realized with a spatial resolution of 100 μm under a low radiation dose. The influence of x-ray tube current, sampling frequency, and exposure times on image quality was examined. Our experiment illustrates a practical method for low-radiation dose ghost imaging and provides valuable reference data for the future development of medical XGI cameras.