AbstractIt is widely believed that measurements from a full angular range of 2π are generally required to exactly reconstruct a complex‐valued refractive index distribution in diffraction tomography (DT). In this work, we developed a new class of minimal‐scan reconstruction algorithms for DT that utilizes measurements only over the angular range 0 ≤ ϕ ≤ 3π/2 to perform an exact reconstruction. These algorithms, referred to as minimal‐scan estimate‐combination (MS‐E‐C) reconstruction algorithms, effectively operate by transforming the DT reconstruction problem into a conventional x‐ray CT reconstruction problem that requires inversion of the Radon transform. We performed computer simulations to compare the noise and numerical properties of the MS‐E‐C algorithms against existing filtered backpropagation‐based algorithms. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol 12, 84–91, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ima.10014