Figure 3. Schematic of a benchtop μCT scanner.

The X-ray source on the left uses a beam of electrons fired at a metal target to produce a cone of X-rays. This conical X-ray beam then passes through the sample to the detector. The sample rotates on a rotation stage and for each angular step, a different X-ray radiography or projection image is taken and sent to the reconstruction computer for further processing (also see Supplementary Video 4).