Development and characterization of a microCT facility

his work reports the design, construction, characterization and application of a novel X-ray imaging beamline at Laboratorio de Investigación e Instrumentación en Física Aplicada a la Medicina e Imágenes por Rayos X - LIIFAMIRx ‑ University of Cordoba and Institute of Physics E. Gaviola - CONICET, Argentina. This development is the first phase in the construction of the integral facility for combining different imaging modalities, like absorption contrast images by primary and scattering contributions, high-resolution micro-tomography, elastic scattering and X-ray fluorescence scanning for chemical composition and surface characterizations. The progress and results here reported concern mainly to the micro-tomography beam-line. This technique is already operative and it was used for several academic researches, application studies and services. The obtained results for the characterization of organic and inorganic samples demonstrated the feasibility and reliability of the developed facility. Accordingly, this work reports specific characteristics about its design, construction, and operation supporting its employment in a wide range of especial applications that might not be accomplished by other available techniques. Moreover, some application studies, mainly focused on biological samples, are presented.