Design of thick aperture for fine-resolution neutron penumbral imaging.

摘要

Compact sources of 14-MeV neutrons have been imaged with a penumbral-coded aperture at a two-point resolution of 80(mu)m. We desire to improve the penumbral-aperture microscope to obtain resolutions as fine as 10(mu)m. In penumbral-coded-aperture imaging, the resolution is ultimately limited by the sharpness of the aperture point-spread function. I present a design for a thick penumbral aperture that provides the desired sharpness over a field of view of 150(mu)m. The point-spread function of these apertures is sufficiently isoplanatic and distortion-free to allow linear reconstruction of complex source distributions. The designs is generally appropriate for similar imaging techniques, such as fine-resolution neutron or gamma-ray pinhole imaging. 5 refs., 5 figs.