Directional X-Ray Scattering Tomography

Since the introduction of dark-field imaging as a novel x-ray contrast method, a broad range of additional sample features have become accessible with laboratory-based tomography for the first time. Here contrast is caused by scattering inside the specimen and thus strongly depends on structures on a scale below the detector resolution. Simple x-ray dark-field tomography is in principle compatible to existing techniques with respect to the dose but only gives good reconstruction results when all structures inside the sample are isotropic meaning the scattering in each volume element does not change when recording the projections. Additionally a radiographic method exists that takes the changes in the scattering strength into account when rotating the sample: Directional dark-field radiography. But this method suffers from being applicable only to thin specimens. Here we present a novel method, directional x-ray scattering tomography, which combines directional dark-field imaging with a direction-aware reconstruction approach, and demonstrate its validity with experimental data from a well-defined specimen. With this novel method medical diagnosis based on non-resolvable structures for example in the case of bone strength could drastically improve.     «

Since the introduction of dark-field imaging as a novel x-ray contrast method, a broad range of additional sample features have become accessible with laboratory-based tomography for the first time. Here contrast is caused by scattering inside the specimen and thus strongly depends on structures on a scale below the detector resolution. Simple x-ray dark-field tomography is in principle compatible to existing techniques with respect to the dose but only gives good reconstruction results when all...     »