Since I could not just go out and buy a portable x-ray machine at walmart I was forced to build one! I found it odd that such a device didn’t seem to exist, since such a machine could prove to be very useful in remote or under-equipped areas like army camps or poor countries.
“Regular radiation” such as microwaves, infrared and visible light typically doesn’t have the energy needed to break chemical bonds, so we may sit out in the sun and get bombarded with a thousand watts and feel no ill effects. Once we reach ultraviolet though, this radiation now has enough energy to break those chemical bonds –including the ones in our bodies. This means that high energy radiation such as that emitted from an x-ray tube can damage DNA, and in high enough doses may even cause radiation sickness.
Invented in 1913 by William D. Coolidge, the Coolidge tube is the most popular method of generating x-rays. Essentially it is a thermionic diode, but optimized for high voltages and high powers. Like a thermionic diode a Coolidge tube is a vacuum tube evacuated to the hardest vacuum reasonable, and also like a thermionic diode it has a heater and an anode.