In the last decade, X-ray phase-contrast imaging has been widely used at synchrotron sources to enhance the contrast for weakly absorbing materials, as for example biological soft tissue. Using optical gratings this imaging modality has finally been extended to conventional polychromatic X-ray sources. This fact opened the X-ray phase-contrast imaging to an even broader community. One of the most interesting aspects of the grating-based method is the complementarity of the provided images. Three different signals can be extracted simultaneously from one single measurement: the attenuation image (as used in conventional radiography), the differential phase-contrast image (comparable to Zernike phase contrast in visible microscopy) and the dark-field image (equivalent to small-angle scattering). The combination of these signals has the potential to improve clinical diagnostic as well as material characterization in non-destructive testing. Here, the information gain using this imaging method at different length scales will be demonstrated for various human diseases [1,2] and for materials characterization [3].
[1] Fingerle AA, Willner M, Herzen J, Noel PB, and Pfeiffer F. Quantitative x-ray phase-contrast computed tomography of simulated cystic kidney lesions - an in vitro phantom study, Radiology 272(3) (2014), p.739-48.
[2] Scherer K, Braig E, Willer K, Willner M, Fingerle AA, Chabior M, Herzen J, Eiber M, Haller B, Straub M, Schneider H, Rummeny E J, Noel P B, Pfeiffer F. Non-invasive Differentiation of Kidney Stone Types using X-ray Dark-Field Radiography, Nature Scientific Reports 5 (2015), 9527.
[3] Yang F, Prade F, Giffa M, Jerjen I, Di Bella C, Herzen J, Sarapata A, Pfeiffer F, and Lura P. Dark-field X-ray imaging of unsaturated water transport in porous materials, Applied Physics Letters 105 (2014), 154105-1-5.