The Handheld X-Ray Imagers are the ideal union of Image Quality, Penetration, Ergonomics and Safety. It is a rugged, ergonomic, handheld backscatter x-ray instrument that enables users to quickly and cost-effectively find concealed explosives, narcotics and other contraband through 3 mm of steel equivalent material — more than three times the thickness of typical motor-vehicle body panels — with none of the limitations of portable transmission x-ray systems. The device weighs only 3.7 kg and images objects with a miniaturized, internal 120 keV x-ray generator that makes a raster-scanning pencil beam of x-rays to scan objects of interest. As the handheld imager is moved over the object, a 2- dimensional backscatter x-ray image of the object is displayed in real-time on high-resolution transflective LCD touchscreen and saved in the instrument’s memory.