Building next-generation X-rays and seismic sensors

A group of Dutch researchers has managed to produce images of what they say are “inconceivably tiny objects, some as small as one to the minus eighteen meters.” Today, they are looking “to see if there are real-world applications for technologies at this small a scale.”

A potential application by one of the researchers, Elisabeth Koffeman of the Dutch National Institute for Subatomic Physics, centres around improving the images produced by x-ray CT scans. While an x-ray scan produces a single 2D picture of the human body, a CT scan produces lots of 2D cross-sections of the body, allowing doctors to reconstruct in 3D the inside of the body.

Current CT scan technology has trouble producing images that clearly distinguish between different tissues within the body. Koffeman's x-ray CT scan innovation will provide doctors with images that do that. With a better understanding of what the inside of a cancer patient looks like, doctors can perform more precise radiation therapy, reducing the total amount of radiation to which they expose patients, saving lives.

This new CT scan technology also has applications in material science, allowing engineers to see smaller cracks on the inside of building materials than they currently can, ultimately helping them create stronger building materials. Koffeman is already discussing her sensors with companies such as Philips, Panalytical, and Shell.

Bakel, too, is in talks with oil and gas companies such as Shell, interested in his work on seismic detectors. These devices measure motion in the ground, from large earthquakes to miniscule tremors a human would never notice. Bakel originally developed his technology to support a gravitational wave detector, a tool for cosmological research that is very sensitive to seismic activity. Bakel says the oil and gas industry, “can put these sensors in the desert to detect oil, producing 3D images of wells.”