No Arabic abstract
X-ray Talbot-Lau interferometer has been used widely to conduct phase contrast imaging with a conventional low-brilliance x-ray source. Typically, in this technique, background correction has to be performed in order to obtain the pure signal of the sample under inspection. In this study, we reported on a research on the background correction strategies within this technique, especially we introduced a new phase unwrapping solution for one conventional background correction method, the key point of this new solution is changing the initial phase of each pixel by a cyclic shift operation on the raw images collected in phase stepping scan. Experimental result and numerical analysis showed that the new phase unwrapping algorithm could successfully subtract contribution of the systems background without error. Moreover, a potential advantage of this phase unwrapping strategy is that its effective phase measuring range could be tuned flexibly in some degree for example to be (-pi+3, pi+3], thus it would find usage in certain case because measuring range of the currently widely used background correction method is fixed to be (-pi, pi].
X-ray Talbot-Lau interferometer has been used most widely to perform X-ray phase-contrast imaging with a conventional low-brilliance X-ray source, it yields high-sensitivity phase and dark-field images of sample producing low absorption contrast, thus bearing tremendous potential for future clinical diagnosis. In this manuscript, while changing accelerating voltage of the X-ray tube from 35KV to 45KV, X-ray phase-contrast imaging of a test sample were performed at each integer KV position to investigate the characteristic of an X-ray Talbot-Lau interferometer (located in the Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials, Tohoku University, Japan) vs. tube voltage. Experimental results and data analysis show that this X-ray Talbot-Lau interferometer is insensitive to the tube accelerating voltage within a certain range, fringe visibility around 44% is maintained in the aforementioned tube voltage range. This experimental research implies that potential new dual energy phase-contrast X-ray imaging strategy and rough refraction spectrum measurement is feasible with this X-ray Talbot-Lau interferometer.
We present a theoretical framework to describe the effects of decoherence on matter waves in Talbot-Lau interferometry. Using a Wigner description of the stationary beam the loss of interference contrast can be calculated in closed form. The formulation includes both the decohering coupling to the environment and the coherent interaction with the grating walls. It facilitates the quantitative distinction of genuine quantum interference from the expectations of classical mechanics. We provide realistic microscopic descriptions of the experimentally relevant interactions in terms of the bulk properties of the particles and show that the treatment is equivalent to solving the corresponding master equation in paraxial approximation.
Using higher-order coherence of thermal light sources, the resolution power of standard x-ray imaging techniques can be enhanced. In this work, we applied the higher-order measurement to far-field x-ray diffraction and near-field phase contrast imaging (PCI), in order to achieve superresolution in x-ray diffraction and obtain enhanced intensity contrast in PCI. The cost of implementing such schemes is minimal compared to the methods that achieve similar effects by using entangled x-ray photon pairs.
Two-dimensional Talbot array illuminators (TAIs) were designed, fabricated, and evaluated for high-resolution high-contrast x-ray phase imaging of soft tissue at 10-20keV. The TAIs create intensity modulations with a high compression ratio on the micrometer scale at short propagation distances. Their performance was compared with various other wavefront markers in terms of period, visibility, flux efficiency and flexibility to be adapted for limited beam coherence and detector resolution. Differential x-ray phase contrast and dark-field imaging were demonstrated with a one-dimensional, linear phase stepping approach yielding two-dimensional phase sensitivity using Unified Modulated Pattern Analysis (UMPA) for phase retrieval. The method was employed for x-ray phase computed tomography reaching a resolution of 3$mu$m on an unstained murine artery. It opens new possibilities for three-dimensional, non-destructive, and quantitative imaging of soft matter such as virtual histology. The phase modulators can also be used for various other x-ray applications such as dynamic phase imaging, super-resolution structured illumination microscopy, or wavefront sensing.
Recent progress in matter-wave interferometry aims to directly probe the quantum properties of matter on ever increasing scales. However, in order to perform interferometric experiments with massive mesoscopic objects, taking into account the constraints on the experimental set-ups, the point-like particle approximation needs to be cast aside. In this work, we consider near-field interferometry based on the Talbot effects with a single optical grating for large spherical particles beyond the point-particle approximation. We account for the suppression of the coherent grating effect and, at the same time, the enhancement of the decoherence effects due to scattering and absorption of grating photons.