X ray radiography and tomography are important tools in medicine as well as in life science and materials science. Not long ago an approach called in-line holography based on simple propagation became possible using partially coherent synchrotron beams like the ones available at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF). Theoretical and experimental work by Cloetens et al. [Appl. Phys. Lett 75, 2912 (1999)] have shown that quantitative retrieval of the optical phase, from a set of radiographs taken at different sample-to-detector distances, is feasible. Mathematically speaking we are dealing with a direct method based on linearization in order to solve an inverse nonlinear problem. The phase retrieval can be combined with classical tomography in order to obtain a three-dimensional representation of the object’s electron density (holotomography). In order to optimize the image contrast for the numerical phase retrieval process, we have carried out calculations resulting in an optimized choice of value and number of the sample-to-detector distances as well as of the photon energy. These results were then confirmed by experiments on the ESRF long beamline ID19.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.