Dynamic laboratory x-ray phase-contrast microtomography with structure-based prior regularisation

X-ray microtomography is a versatile tool allowing the measurement of the 3D structure of optically thick samples. As a non-destructive technique, it is readily adapted to 4D imaging, where a sample can be monitored over time, and especially in conjunction with the application of external stimuli. To apply this technique with the limited x-ray flux available at a conventional laboratory source, we leverage the contrast enhancement of free-space propagation phase-contrast imaging, achieving an increase in contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) of 5.8x. Furthermore, we combine this with iterative reconstruction, using regularisation by a structure-based prior from a high-quality reference scan of the object. This combination of phase-contrast imaging and iterative reconstruction leads to a 29.2x improvement in CNR compared to the conventional reconstruction. This enables fully dynamic x-ray microtomography, with a temporal resolution of 9 s at a voxel size of 10.5 μm. We use this to measure the movement of a waterfront in the fine vessels of a wooden skewer, as a representative example of dynamic system evolving on the scale of tens of seconds.