Comparison of X-ray speckle-based imaging deflection retrieval algorithms for the optimization of radiation dose

X-ray phase contrast imaging can provide improved or complementary information to traditional attenuation-based X-ray imaging, making the field a vast and rapidly evolving research subject. X-ray speckle-based imaging (SBI) is one phase-contrast imaging approach that has shown significant potential in providing both high sensitivity and high resolution while using a very simple experimental setup. With the aim of transferring such phase-contrast-based imaging techniques from synchrotron to laboratory X-ray sources, the issue of the deposited radiation dose still remains to be addressed. In this work, we experimentally and quantitatively compare the results from three different SBI phase retrieval algorithms using both phantoms and biological samples in order to infer the optimal configuration. The results obtained using a synchrotron beam suggest that the technique based on optical flow conservation achieves the most accurate retrieval from the lowest number of sample exposures. This constitutes an important step toward the possibility of transferring SBI into the clinic.