The Mammography Project at ELETTRA

The Mammography Project at ELETTRA whose acronym is SYRMEP (SYnchrotron Radiation for Medical Physics), developed along two lines: the design, construction and test of the synchrotron radiation beam line and the design, manufacturing and test of the imaging device; both are now in the commissioning phase. The X ray beam originates from an ELETTRA bending magnet, it is laminar, with maximum cross section 150 x 4 mm(2), further adjustable through a vertical and horizontal slit system so as to match the cross section of the imaging device; it is monochromatized by a Si(1, I, 1) channel cut monochromator that delivers photons in the range 8 to 32 keV, the intensities ranging from 4 x 10(8) to 1 x 10(7) sec(-1) mm(-2) according to energy. The detecting system consists of a single stage flux monitor followed downstream by a Si strip detector on which the photons impinge sideways; in this way each strip behaves as a pixel detector with a cross section determined by the detector thickness and strip pitch (0.2 x 0.3 mm(2)), while the crystal breadth (10 mm) guarantees the proper absorption depth in the range of energies of interest; the read-out electronics is such to perform single photon counting.