Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) has been widely applied to measure bone mineral density (BMD) and soft-tissue composition of human body. However, the use of DEXA is greatly limited for low-Z materials such as soft tissues due to their weak absorption. While X-ray phase-contrast imaging (XPCI) shows significantly improved contrast in comparison with the conventional standard absorption-based X-ray imaging for soft tissues. In this paper, we propose a novel X-ray phase-contrast method to measure the area density of low-Z materials, including a single-energy method and a dual-energy method. The single-energy method is for the area density calculation of one low-Z material, while the dual-energy method is aiming to calculate the area densities of two low-Z materials simultaneously. Comparing the experimental and simulation results with the theoretic ones, the new method proves to have the potential to replace DEXA in area density measurement. The new method sets the prerequisites for future precise and low-dose area density calculation method of low-Z materials.

X-ray Talbot-Lau interferometer has been used most widely to perform X-ray phasecontrast imaging with a conventional low-brilliance X-ray source, it yields high-sensitivity phase and dark-field images of sample producing low absorption contrast, thus bearing tremendous potential for future clinical diagnosis. In this manuscript, while changing accelerating voltage of the X-ray tube from 35KV to 45KV, X-ray phase-contrast imaging of a test sample were performed at each integer KV position to investigate the characteristic of an X-ray Talbot-Lau interferometer (located in the Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials, Tohoku University, Japan) vs. tube voltage. Experimental results and data analysis show that this X-ray Talbot-Lau interferometer is insensitive to the tube accelerating voltage within a certain range, fringe visibility around 44% is maintained in the aforementioned tube voltage range. This experimental research implies that potential new dual energy phase-contrast X-ray imaging strategy and rough refraction spectrum measurement is feasible with this X-ray Talbot-Lau interferometer.

X-ray phase-contrast imaging can provide greatly improved contrast over conventional absorption-based imaging for weakly absorbing samples, such as biological soft tissues and fibre composites. In this study, we introduced an easy and fast way to develop a user-friendly software platform dedicated to the new grating-based X-ray phase-contrast imaging setup at the National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory of the University of Science and Technology of China. The control of 21 motorized stages, of a piezoelectric stage and of an X-ray tube are achieved with this software, it also covers image acquisition with a flat panel detector for automatic phase stepping scan. Moreover, a data post-processing module for signals retrieval and other custom features are in principle available. With a seamless integration of all the necessary functions in one software package, this platform greatly facilitate users' activities during experimental runs with this grating based X-ray phase contrast imaging setup. S. Wang et al. / A user-friendly LabVIEW software platform for grating based X-ray phase-contrast imagingcomposites [2][3][4]. The demonstration of a Talbot-Lau interferometer in the hard X-ray region with a conventional low-brilliance X-ray source overcame the problems that impaired a wider use of phasecontrast in X-ray radiography and tomography, representing a great breakthrough in X-ray imaging [5]. It also foresaw many potential applications in biology, medicine, non-destructive testing, food inspection, security devices, etc. [6][7][8][9].A new grating based X-ray phase-contrast imaging system has been designed and assembled at the National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory of the University of Science and Technology of China. This high-grade precision and sophisticated imaging system is mainly made up of an X-ray tube, an X-ray flat panel detector and three micro-structured gratings, all mounted on multi-dimensional optical displacement tables assembled by 21 motorized stages and an ultra-precision piezoelectric translation stage. The stages are located inside a radiation protection lead room, and can only be manually controlled when the X-ray generator is shut off. However, tedious movements of the stages are needed during experimental runs for grating alignment with X-ray radiation. It is then urgent the development of a remote control package for all the motorized stages. Also automatic image acquisition with the flat panel detector is required, because in phase-stepping scan, dozens of images have to be collected to generate a single phase-contrast projection image and hundreds of projections are needed in the computed tomography for a high-quality 3D reconstruction [10]. Moreover, once we obtain raw images, complex digital image processing has to be performed to retrieve conventional absorption, phase-contrast and dark field images.Typically, the LabVIEW protocol is used to control motorized stages and X-ray tube thanks to the easy availability of hardware drivers [11,12]. C ++ is often utilized to develop a custo...