Measurement of the MTF of a small animal micro-CT system

The aim of the study was to determine the spatial resolution of the small animal micro-CT system. A standard wire phantom was used to measure the modular transfer function (MTF) of the micro-CT system. On the imaging conditions with X-ray the voltage of 40 kVp, exposure time of 1 second, detector mode of 2 × 2, and system magnification factor of 2, the measured system spatial resolution is ∼11lp/mm at 10% MTF, which is about 91 microns. The results showed that the small animal micro-CT that we developed has met our design goal to achieve the spatial resolution under 100 microns. (authors)