Simple and fast scattering information in X-ray grating-based phase-contrast imaging

Abstract

X-ray grating-based phase-contrast imaging is a potential imaging method with pre-clinical and clinical applications because it has the possibility of a large field of view and is compatible with X-ray tube sources. However, in X-ray grating-based phase-contrast imaging extraction methods have great importance to retrieve and separate information enabling high acquisition speed, reduced exposure dose and improved mechanical stability. Phase-stepping is a widely used extraction method in X-ray grating-based phase-contrast imaging. However, its discontinuous mode of acquisition leads to worse mechanical stability, exposure dose is generally high, which limits clinical applications significantly. In this work, the integrating bucket method is translated from visible light to X-ray regime, to extract scattering information of the investigated object. Both theoretical derivations with numerical simulation and experiments were performed to confirm the veracity and feasibility of the proposed method. In addition, we present the advantages of the proposed method over the phase-stepping method.