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Published online 16 July 2002 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news020715-1

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Hand-held X-ray gun

Carbon nanotubes provide portable, low-power X-ray source.

Cheap, portable X-ray sources could soon replace the cumbersome, fragile devices currently used for biomedical imaging. US scientists have created a hand-held prototype in which X-rays are produced by beams of electrons emitted from tiny filaments of pure carbon.

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