Congrats to Daniela and Franz Pfeiffer as well as Jonathan Finley for receiving #ERC Synergy Grants! 👏 The projects focus on developing ultra-detailed, low-radiation #Xrayimaging and creating chips for #quantumcomputers: http://go.tum.de/267631

#ERCSyG
📷A.Eckert

Congratulations to Julia Herzen, Karl Duderstadt and Job Boekhoven who receive the prestigious #ERC Consolidator Grants from the ERC Research Council http://go.tum.de/320269 🥳

#xrayimaging #dna #SupramolecularChemistry

📷R.Lahn

Scientists report world’s first X-ray of a single atom in Nature
https://www.ohio.edu/news/2023/05/scientists-report-worlds-first-x-ray-single-atom-nature

... have taken the world’s first X-ray SIGNAL (or SIGNATURE) of just one atom.

Paper (2023-05-31): Characterization of just one atom using synchrotron X-rays
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06011-w

Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36474512
YouTube (for reference): A Better Way To Picture Atoms, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2Xb2GFK2yc

#XrayImaging #SingleAtomResolution #imaging #Xrays

Building An X-Ray Machine

While we typically encourage hackers to make their own tools or machines when practical, x-ray machines don't usually make that list. Despite the risk of radiation, [William Osman] has done just that and built a homemade x-ray machine. After receiving an eye-watering medical bill, [William] resolves to make his own x-ray machine in the hopes of avoiding future bills. Thanks to his insurance, the total owed was smaller but still ridiculous to those who live in single-payer health care countries, but it got William thinking. What if he could make an x-ray machine to do cheap x-rays?

Armed with a cheap high voltage DC power supply he acquired from an online auction house, he started to power up his x-ray vacuum tube. A smaller power supply energizes the cathode and forms an electron beam. Then the high voltage (30-150kv) is applied as a tube voltage, accelerating the electrons into x-rays. Safety measures are taken somewhat haphazardly with Geiger counters and lead sheets. With a finger bone cast in ballistic shell [William] made his first x-ray with a long exposure on a DSLR. The next items to go in the x-ray "chamber" were a phone and a hand. The results were actually pretty decent and you can clearly see the bones.

We've seen homemade X-Ray machines here at Hackaday before, but not one that is constructed perhaps so haphazardly -- his approach makes this obvious: don't try this at home. Video after the break.

#medicalhacks #highvoltage #medical #vacuumtube #xray #xrayimaging