Investigation of characteristic microstructures of wild ginseng by X-ray phase contrast microscopy

Abstract

X-ray phase contrast microscopy (XPCM) achieves the high contrast imaging of low electron density materials with the spatial coherence peculiarity of X-rays. Considering that ginsengs are mainly composed of C, H, O, N and other low-Z elements, XPCM is an ideal tool to nondestructively investigate the characteristic microstructures of ginsengs in principle. Owing to the higher fluxes and luminance of the third generation of synchrotron radiation facility, it can present clearer and finer microstructures of ginsengs with better spatial and temporal resolutions. In this paper, the characteristic microstructures of wild ginseng ware investigated systemically by XPCM at Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF). For comparison, the characteristic structures of cultivated ginseng are also studied correspondingly. Moreover, a kind of new microstructure is found in young ginsengs, which is possibly a new characteristic structure of ginsengs. The results demonstrates that XPCM is a promising new method of identifying wild ginseng.