Fig. 4: Controlling spatial resolution with disorder in photonic crystal scintillators.
From: Large-scale self-assembled nanophotonic scintillators for X-ray imaging
a Experimental setup for X-ray imaging with large-area nanophotonic scintillators. OBJ = object; LENS = microscope objective; CAM = CMOS camera. b The transfer function of the disordered photonic crystal is modeled as a convolution between that of an ordered photonic crystal and that of a disordered height map. c, d Atomic force micrographs (AFM) for EL (c) and IL samples (d). e, f Corresponding spatial resolution measurements in the presence of a razor blade to block part of the incoming X-rays. We note that our imaging system was focused by hand without tracking the position of the focal plane. Therefore, the focal plane when imaging the EL sample may have been closer to the front (patterned) face of the sample than in the case of the IL sample, resulting in, effectively, lower blur and higher measured spatial resolution. g Disorder distribution of the two samples. h Relative decrease in spatial resolution (increase in blur) as a function of the disorder root mean square (RMS). Full lines are calculated for fields propagating through the whole scintillator (thickness t), dashed lines for its effective thickness teff taking into account X-ray absorption. The dots represent measurements for the two samples (EL and IL) in this paper.
