Effective focal spot measurement method for X-ray source based on the dynamic translation of a light barrier

The accuracy of measuring the effective focal spot of the X-ray source directly affects the spatial resolution of computed tomography (CT) reconstructed images. This study proposes what we believe to be a novel approach to measure the effective focal spot based on the dynamic translation of light barrier using an accessible measuring device. This method discretizes the effective focal spot of the X-ray source into multiple subfocal spots with varying intensities and establishes a nonlinear model between the effective focal spot and measurement data. Measurement data are obtained by moving the light barrier to different positions using the electric displacement stage. The shape, size, and intensity distribution of the effective focal spot are determined by calculating the normalized weighting coefficients for each subfocal spot from measurement data. The measurement device is simple and easy to operate. Additionally, the obtained effective focal spot exhibits high accuracy, and a higher spatial resolution can be realized by reconstructing the CT images using the measured focal spot information. Numerical and real experiments validate the proposed method.