Abstract
X-ray microtomography is a widely applied tool for noninvasive structure investigations. The related detectors are usually based on a scintillator screen for the fast in situ conversion of an X-ray image into an optical image. Spatial resolution of the latter is fundamentally diffraction limited. In this work, we introduce stimulated scintillation emission depletion (SSED) X-ray imaging where, similar to stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy, a depletion beam is applied to the scintillator screen to overcome the diffraction limit. The requirements for the X-ray source, the X-ray flux, the scintillator screen, and the STED beam were evaluated. Fundamental spatial resolution limits due to the spread of absorbed X-ray energy were estimated with Monte Carlo simulations. The SSED proof-of-concept experiments demonstrated 1) depletion of X-ray excited scintillation, 2) partial confinement of scintillating regions to sub-diffraction sized volumes, and 3) improvement of the imaging contrast by applying SSED.
Highlights
X-ray microtomography is a powerful technique for investigating the internal structure of opaque objects [1]
We introduce the concept for stimulated scintillation emission depletion (SSED) X-ray imaging
A better solution could be parallelization of SSED using a wide-field nonlinear structured depletion pattern, which has been successfully implemented with widefield excitation in super-resolution microscopy [51]. 4.3 Spatial confinement of the scintillation signal we demonstrate the possibility of spatial confinement of the scintillation signal by the stimulated emission depletion (STED)-laser
Summary
X-ray microtomography is a powerful technique for investigating the internal structure of opaque objects [1]. In far-field fluorescence microscopy, the diffraction limit was overcome with stimulated emission depletion (STED), which improved the spatial resolution down to the nanometer scale [5, 6]. We introduce the concept for stimulated scintillation emission depletion (SSED) X-ray imaging It combines STED nanoscopy with conventional scintillator-based Xray imaging to improve the spatial resolution of the latter. This technique requires neither coherent or monochromatic X-rays, nor X-ray optics. We demonstrate experimentally that X-ray excited scintillation can be depleted by a STED-laser, the scintillating region can thereby be spatially confined, and X-ray imaging contrast can be improved by applying SSED. This increases the probability of undesired multi-photon excitation by the STED laser
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