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. 2021 Feb 5;27(14):4561–4566. doi: 10.1002/chem.202005203

Figure 1.

Figure 1

(A) Schematic representation of a μCT setup showing the X‐ray source on the left and the detector on the right. In the middle is a rotation stage holding the soft‐tissue sample. The Lambert–Beer law describes the reduction of the X‐ray intensity by passing through a material. Here the linear absorption coefficient μ i, which is unique for each material, is directly proportional to the atomic number Z to the power of 4. [12] (B) Unstained soft tissue is mainly made of hydrogen (H), carbon (C), oxygen (O), and nitrogen atoms (N), which consist of low atomic numbers resulting in an inherent low contrast for soft tissue seen on the CT slice. (C) Stained tissue on the other hand has accumulated contrast agent that holds elements of high atomic number Z (see stained CT slice). The contrast agent used here was dibromo fluorescein 9 c (see chemical structure) holding two bromine atoms (Z Br=35, highlighted in apricot) and a barium atom (Z Ba=56, highlighted in green).