UCL partners with Nikon to transform X-ray technology

UCL is joining forces with Nikon to launch a £4.8m Prosperity Partnership, which aims to combine new techniques to gain more information from X-rays, improving disease detection and industrial testing. The five-year initiative is funded by the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC), and will put the UK at the forefront of X-ray imaging (XRI), which plays an important role in a range of sectors and industries, from medicine to security, manufacturing, aerospace and cultural heritage. Researchers working on the project will create images based on changes in the X-ray phase, similar to the process of creating holograms with visible light, which will reveal details that were previously considered impossible to detect through X-rays. They will then look to combine this with energy-resolved XRI, which further increases the amount of information that can be obtained from any imaged sample in a similar way to what colour photography does compared to black and white. The project could have major repercussions across a range of sectors from medical scans to XRI scanners at airports. Professor Sandro Olivo (UCL Medical Physics & Biomedical Engineering) said: "It is terribly exciting to be given this opportunity. This is not about improving an existing method - it's about creating radical new technology that is not currently available, with great social and economic impact.