Exploring single-shot propagation and speckle based phase recovery techniques for object thickness estimation by...

Area of Science:

• X-ray imaging
• Phase retrieval techniques
• Materials science

Background:

• Propagation-based and speckle-based techniques enable X-ray phase reconstruction with simple setups.
• These methods are compatible with low-coherence laboratory X-ray sources.
• Accounting for X-ray polychromaticity is crucial for accurate sample thickness recovery.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate methods to incorporate X-ray polychromaticity for sample thickness recovery.
• Evaluate single-shot Paganin (PT) and Arhatari (AT) propagation-based and speckle-based (ST) techniques.
• Assess the feasibility of these techniques for millimeter-sized samples using polychromatic microfocus X-ray sources.

Main Methods:

• Employed single-shot Paganin (PT) and speckle-based (ST) techniques.
• Addressed X-ray polychromaticity using three averaging approaches and considering the emission-detection process.
• Analyzed reconstructed thickness of nylon-6 fibers and a breast phantom using multi-material Paganin's technique (MPT).

Main Results:

• The combined PT and ST with thickness averaging (TA) yielded the best quantitative results at the smallest object-detector distance.
• Recovered fiber diameters showed an error of less than 1%, with diameter ratios accurate to within 3%.
• The breast phantom thickness difference between MPT-TA and micro-CT was approximately 10%.

Conclusions:

• Demonstrated the feasibility of single-shot PT-TA and ST-TA for thickness recovery of millimeter-sized samples with polychromatic X-ray sources.
• The multi-material Paganin's technique with thickness averaging (MPT-TA) shows promise for thicker and multi-material samples.