X-ray directional dark-field imaging using Unified Modulated Pattern Analysis

X-ray directional dark-field imaging is a recent technique that can reveal a sample's small-scale structural properties which are otherwise invisible in a conventional imaging system. In particular, directional dark-field can detect and quantify the orientation of anisotropic structures. Here, we present an algorithm that allows for the extraction of a directional dark-field signal from X-ray speckle-based imaging data. The experimental setup is simple, as it requires only the addition of a diffuser to a full-field microscope setup. Sandpaper is an appropriate diffuser material in the hard x-ray regime. We propose an approach to extract the mean scattering width, directionality, and orientation from the recorded speckle images acquired with the technique. We demonstrate that our method can detect and quantify the orientation of fibres inside a carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) sample within one degree of accuracy and show how the accuracy depends on the number of included measurements. We show that the reconstruction parameters can be tuned to increase or decrease accuracy at the expense of spatial resolution.