Abstract
The possibility to perform high-sensitivity X-ray phase-contrast imaging with laboratory grating-based phase-contrast computed tomography (gbPC-CT) setups is of great interest for a broad range of high-resolution biomedical applications. However, achieving high sensitivity with laboratory gbPC-CT setups still poses a challenge because several factors such as the reduced flux, the polychromaticity of the spectrum, and the limited coherence of the X-ray source reduce the performance of laboratory gbPC-CT in comparison to gbPC-CT at synchrotron facilities. In this work, we present our laboratory X-ray Talbot-Lau interferometry setup operating at 40 kVp and describe how we achieve the high sensitivity yet unrivalled by any other laboratory X-ray phase-contrast technique. We provide the angular sensitivity expressed via the minimum resolvable refraction angle both in theory and experiment, and compare our data with other differential phase-contrast setups. Furthermore, we show that the good stability of our high-sensitivity setup allows for tomographic scans, by which even the electron density can be retrieved quantitatively as has been demonstrated in several preclinical studies.
Highlights
One of the current challenges for laboratory phase-contrast imaging is the need for setups that are able to detect extremely small refraction angles, i.e. setups that exhibit high sensitivity in combination with high spatial resolution
We describe the design of a grating-based phase-contrast computed tomography (gbPC-CT) setup by refining the aforementioned results with additional measures to reach high sensitivity for tomographic scans, which mainly depends on reaching high sensitivity in DPC projections
We chose an exposure time of 55 s per DPC projection for the tomographic scans corresponding to a sensitivity of 38 nrad
Summary
Lorenz Birnbacher[1], Marian Willner[1], Astrid Velroyen[1], Mathias Marschner[1], Alexander Hipp[2], Jan Meiser[3], Frieder Koch[3], Tobias Schröter[3], Danays Kunka[3], Jürgen Mohr[3], Franz Pfeiffer1 & Julia Herzen[1]. The possibility to perform high-sensitivity X-ray phase-contrast imaging with laboratory grating-based phase-contrast computed tomography (gbPC-CT) setups is of great interest for a broad range of highresolution biomedical applications. Among the X-ray phase-contrast imaging methods that are generally mainly available at synchrotron sources grating-based differential phase-contrast (DPC) imaging can be realised with incoherent laboratory X-ray sources[3,4] This essential development increases the availability of phase-contrast imaging, and allows for a wide range of biomedical applications. In comparison to synchrotron facilities, the performance of laboratory phase-contrast setups is usually compromised by the polychromaticity of the X-ray spectrum, the lower spatial resolution due to a larger source size, the incoherence of the radiation, and the limited flux. We show an exemplary tomographic scan of a biomedical specimen visualizing slight differences in the refractive index decrement with a sensitivity comparable to results from synchrotrons, and – in combination with energy calibration – the resolvable electron density resolution
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