Abstract
Sensitivity to sub-pixel sample features has been demonstrated as a valuable capability of phase contrast x-ray imaging. Here, we report on a method to obtain angular-resolved small angle x-ray scattering distributions with edge-illumination- based imaging utilizing incoherent illumination from an x-ray tube. Our approach provides both the three established image modalities (absorption, differential phase and scatter strength), plus a number of additional contrasts related to unresolved sample features. The complementarity of these contrasts is experimentally validated by using different materials in powder form. As a significant application example we show that the extended complementary contrasts could allow the diagnosis of pulmonary emphysema in a murine model. In support of this, we demonstrate that the properties of the retrieved scattering distributions are consistent with the expectation of increased feature sizes related to pulmonary emphysema. Combined with the simplicity of implementation of edge-illumination, these findings suggest a high potential for exploiting extended sub-pixel contrasts in the diagnosis of lung diseases and beyond.
Highlights
In the experiment, illumination curves (IC) were obtained by recording the detected intensity for each pixel while the sample mask was laterally scanned in M steps separated by a fraction of the mask pitch
In the following pilot experiment with a mouse model of cigarette smoke exposure-induced emphysema, we demonstrate that EI-small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) can detect this increase in feature sizes by exploiting the complementarity of the second and fourth moment of deconvolved scattering distributions
We presented a deconvolution based method for x-ray imaging based on the edge-illumination principle that provides the angular resolved small angle x-ray scattering distribution with a laboratory-based set-up (EI-SAXS)
Summary
We presented a deconvolution based method for x-ray imaging based on the edge-illumination principle that provides the angular resolved small angle x-ray scattering distribution with a laboratory-based set-up (EI-SAXS). We demonstrated that the properties of experimental scattering distributions were consistent with larger average feature sizes in the emphysematous lung. Based on these observations, we introduced the ratio of the 4th and 2nd moment as an illustration model for emphysema diagnosis. The number of samples was small, the observed effect was very large, with the M4/M2-ratios separated by more than 40 CIs. In combination with the simple translatability of edge-illumination to a commercial system, the achieved results indicate EI-SAXS’s high potential for the exploitation of additional sub-pixel contrasts in biomedical research, materials science and medical diagnostics - especially for, but not limited to, improving the detection and characterisation of pulmonary emphysema
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