Other Imaging Technologies

Because of its extreme insolubiUty, barium sulfate is not toxic the usual antidote for poisonous barium compounds is to convert them to barium sulfate by administering sodium or magnesium sulfate. In medicine, barium sulfate is widely used as an x-ray contrast medium (see Imaging TECHNOLOGY X-RAY technology). It is also used in photographic papers, filler for plastics, and in concrete as a radiation shield. Commercially, barium sulfate is sold both as natural barite ore and as a precipitated product. Blanc fixe is also used in making white sidewall mbber tires or in other mbber appHcations. 

A useful classification of sensitizing dyes is the one adopted to describe patents in image technology. In Table 1, the Image Technology Patent Information System (ITPAIS), dye classes and representative patent citations from the ITPAIS file are Hsted as a function of significant dye class. From these citations it is clear that preferred sensitizers for silver haUdes are polymethine dyes (cyanine, merocyanine, etc), whereas other semiconductors have more evenly distributed citations. Zinc oxide, for example, is frequendy sensitized by xanthene dyes (qv) or triarylmethane dyes (see Triphenylmethane and related dyes) as well as cyanines and merocyanines (see Cyanine dyes). 

The EPID concept can be combined with other developments in imaging technology to produce optical devices such as light valves and x-ray imagers. The accompanying illustration shows an example of an electrophoretic x-ray imager. 

Other Imaging Materials. Photopolymer technology is being utilized in the manufacture of other types of optical elements including rewriteable recording materials (e.g. photochromic imaging) (59) and permanent information recording by processes such as laser ablation. 

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