SBES Advanced Multi-scale CT Facility at Virginia Tech - From Multi-scale to Multi-energy and Multi-Parameter Imaging Capabilities

While clinical CT scanners are available at our medical school, for preclinical imaging we have a Scanco micro-CT scanner, an Xradia micro-CT scanner and an Xradia nano-CT scanner. With all these scanners, we can cover image resolution and sample size over six orders of magnitude. The Scanco scanner has resolution 16 µm and FOV 20-38 mm. The Xradia micro-CT scanner, purchased using an NIH SIG grant in 2008, is the highest resolution micro-CT system on the market. It produces 0.5 µm resolution and handle samples of up to 100 mm diameter. The Xradia nano-CT scanner, purchased using an NSF-MRI grant in 2009, has 50 nm resolution and represents the state-of-the-art. It allows tomographic imaging in either the attenuation or Zernike phase contrast mode. For the high-resolution performance of the micro-/nano-CT systems, special housing is vital to ensuring technical development and biomedical applications. We have a dedicated space for these systems in the Institute for Critical Technologies and Applied Sciences (ICTAS; http://www.ictas.vt.edu) Building A, adjacent to the Nanoscale Characterization and Fabrication Lab (NCFL; http://www.ictas.vt.edu/NCFL) at Virginia Tech, which hosts most other cutting-edge imaging systems under one roof.