Optimizing contrast and spatial resolution in hard x-ray tomography of medically relevant tissues

DOI: 10.1063/1.5133742

Authors: Griffin Rodgers (University of Basel) , Georg Schulz (University of Basel) , Hans Deyhle (University of Basel) , Willy Kuo (University of Basel; University of Zurich) , Christoph Rau (Diamond Light Source) , Timm Weitkamp (Synchrotron Soleil) , Bert Muller (University of Basel)
Co-authored by industrial partner: No

Type: Journal Paper
Journal: Applied Physics Letters , VOL 116

State: Published (Approved)
Published: January 2020
Diamond Proposal Number(s): 19829 , 20746

Abstract: Hard x-ray tomography with Paganin's widespread single-distance phase retrieval filter improves the contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) while reducing spatial resolution (SR). We demonstrate that a Gaussian filter provided larger CNR at high SR with interpretable density measurements for two medically relevant soft tissue samples. Paganin's filter produced larger CNR at low SR, though a priori assumptions were generally false and image quality gains diminish for CNR > 1. Therefore, simple absorption measurements of low-Z specimens combined with Gaussian filtering can provide improved image quality and model-independent density measurements compared to single-distance phase retrieval.

Journal Keywords: Organs; Tomography; Density measurement; X-ray imaging; Synchrotron radiation; Hard X-rays; Linear filters

Subject Areas: Technique Development, Biology and Bio-materials


Instruments: I13-2-Diamond Manchester Imaging