X-ray Dark-field is a relatively new contrast mechanism that combines the high resolution of X-ray scattering to the large field-of-view of X-ray imaging. It exhibits the property of orientation-selectivity, which forms the basis of a new sub-category of imaging methods, namely, Anisotropic X-ray Dark-field (AXDF) imaging. AXDF imaging utilizes the orientation selectivity of the dark-field signal to reveal information about sub-pixel sized structures without the need of directly resolving them. In addition, AXDF tomography aims at the reconstruction of the three dimensional scattering information inside every three dimensional volume element.
AXDF imaging is a suitable candidate for non-destructive testing, a field with an ever increasing demand for higher resolution and larger field-of-view. Currently available high resolution imaging methods, such as X-ray micro Computed Tomography, are unable to meet these demands due to the trade-off between the spatial resolution and the measurable sample size. AXDF imaging, with at least two orders of magnitude difference between the size of the structures probed versus the size of the investigated sample, is a promising tool for this industry. However, AXDF imaging methods require bulky hardware and long acquisition time that severely hinder their translation to industrial applications. Development of optimized and industrially compatible AXDF acquisition protocols is the main goal of this thesis.
With the above goal in mind, we present a method for fast two dimensional AXDF imaging of continuously moving samples. Further, we investigate AXDF tomographic methods where the directional dependence of the dark-field signal renders standard tomographic acquisition unusable. We present two approaches to design tomographic acquisition schemes for optimal sampling of the real and reciprocal space, simultaneously. We validate the proposed methods with numerical and experimental analysis. In both cases, the proposed methods reduce the hardware and time complexity of two and three dimensional AXDF imaging methods and, hence, are a significant step forward for using these methods outside the laboratory.
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X-ray Dark-field is a relatively new contrast mechanism that combines the high resolution of X-ray scattering to the large field-of-view of X-ray imaging. It exhibits the property of orientation-selectivity, which forms the basis of a new sub-category of imaging methods, namely, Anisotropic X-ray Dark-field (AXDF) imaging. AXDF imaging utilizes the orientation selectivity of the dark-field signal to reveal information about sub-pixel sized structures without the need of directly resolving them....
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