Laura Ramirez

January 26, 2017

RTE 142
Professor Yost
Notebook 3
Base
The base is usually made of polyester plastic 1mm thick, although cardboard and metal have
been used. Its requirements are similar to those for a film base. It must be flexible to permit it to
achieve good contact with the fil. Films are designed to be most sensitive to the particular
wavelength of light emitted by screen, discoloration may require more light, and consequently
more patient radiation dose, to form the latent image. Base material must be uniformly
radiolucent so that it permits the transmission of x-ray photons without adding artifacts to the
diagnostic image.

Reflective Layer
The base material is not transparent to light. A special layer of reflective material, such as
magnesium oxide or titanium dioxide, about 25m thick, is used to reflect light toward the film.
Light that is emitted at a large angle from the direction of the incident x-ray photon will have a
slightly longer wavelength. Longer-wavelength scattered light causes a large area of penumbra,
which reduces the sharpness of the image.

Phosphor Layer
The active layer of the intensifying screen is the phosphor layer. Phosphors are materials that are
capable of absorbing the energy of an incident x-ray photon and then emitting light photons.
Rontgen discovered x-rays where barium platinocyanide from a piece of cardboard in his
laboratory. This phosphor layer varies from 150 to 300m, depending on the speed and resolving
power of the screen.

Protective Coat
A coating of protective plastic about 25m thick is applied on top of the phosphor layer. The
coating protects the phosphor layer from abrasions and stains during the loading of films. When
intensifying screens are scratched, phosphor crystals may be removed, creating unexposed white-
line artifacts on the radiographic image.
Base
The film base was originally composed of a glass plate. Glass plates coated with emulsion were
used in photography from soon after its discovered until World War I. The film base must be
flexible yet tough, stable, rigid, and uniformly lucent. The film base usually includes a blue dye
to tint the film and reduce eyestrain for the interpreting radiologist, thereby increasing the
diagnostic accuracy available from the image. The film base is also often coated with a special
substance to prevent light from one screen crossing over to the other, causing blurring of the
image. Halation is an effect caused by light being reflected from the air interface on the back of
the base material. An antihalation coating may be applied to the back of single-emulsion film.
This coating is designed to absorb the light coming from the emulsion and prevent backscatter,
visible light or reflected light from degrading the image. Single-emulsion film must be loaded
with the emulsion toward the intensifying screen.

Adhesive
A thin coating of adhesive is applied to the base material before it is coated with the emulsion.
This substratum coating is designed to glue the emulsion to the base and prevent bubbles or other
distortion when the film is bent during processing or handling, or when it is wet and heated
during development.

Emulsion
The emulsion is composed of gelatin in which photosensitive silver halide crystals are
suspended. It is spread in an extremely even coating that, depending on the manufacturer, ranges
from 5-10 m of thickness on each side of the base. The photosensitive agents suspended in the
emulsion are silver halide crystals (or gains). The silver halides used in radiographic film are
silver bromide, silver iodide, and silver chloride. Because photographic film normally has
emulsion on a single side, diagnostic radiograph film is sometimes called duplitized, double-
emulsion, or double-coated film.

Supercoat
The supercoat is a layer of hard, protective gelatin designed to prevent the soft emulsion
underneath from being physically or chemically abused by scratches, abrasions from stacking,
and skin oils from handling. The only items routinely used during film handling that are capable
of permanently damaging the surface of a radiograph are a paper slip and a staple.

Manufacturing
Radiographic film is manufactured in four stages: crystal production, ripening, mixing, and
coating.

Crystal production: Silver bromide crystal production is accomplished, in total darkness,

by combining silver nitrate and potassium bromide in the presence of gelatin. The silver bromide
in the precipitate out and the potassium nitrate can be washed away as a waste product. The
gelatin must be present as a medium to permit the crystals to form. The silver halide crystals
must have an impurity added, usually gold-silver, to form sensitivity specks.
 Ripening: Ripening is the period during which silver halides are allowed to grow. The
size of the crystals determine their total photosensitivity, so the longer the ripening period, the
larger the crystals (or gains) and the more sensitive the emulsion.
Mixing: The mixing process follows ripening. The shredded emulsion is melted at a
precise temperature to properly sensitive the crystals. Numerous additives are then mixed into
the emulsion. Films are often classified as panchromatic or orthochromatic, according to their
sensitivity to the color of light.
Coating: The coating process requires extremely precise and expensive coating
equipment. First, the adhesive layer is applied to the base, then the emulsion, and, finally, the
supercoat. All film manufacturing, packaging, transport, exposure, and processing must be
accomplished in total darkness.

Intensifying-Screen Film
Commonly called screen film, this type of film is available in a variety of speeds, contrast
ranges, latitude, and resolutions. The primary differences are in speed (sensitivity of silver
halides), which is controlled by the size of the crystals and the thickness of the emulsion layer.
Duplication film is designed to provide an exact image of the original film. Diagnostic
radiographs are actually negatives because they reverse the blacks and whites of the subject
(white-bone).