Dataset Information

Enhancing Tabletop X-Ray Phase Contrast Imaging with Nano-Fabrication.

ABSTRACT: X-ray phase-contrast imaging is a promising approach for improving soft-tissue contrast and lowering radiation dose in biomedical applications. While current tabletop imaging systems adapt to common x-ray tubes and large-area detectors by employing absorptive elements such as absorption gratings or monolithic crystals to filter the beam, we developed nanometric phase gratings which enable tabletop x-ray far-field interferometry with only phase-shifting elements, leading to a substantial enhancement in the performance of phase contrast imaging. In a general sense the method transfers the demands on the spatial coherence of the x-ray source and the detector resolution to the feature size of x-ray phase masks. We demonstrate its capabilities in hard x-ray imaging experiments at a fraction of clinical dose levels and present comparisons with the existing Talbot-Lau interferometer and with conventional digital radiography.

SUBMITTER: Miao H

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4551996 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Enhancing Tabletop X-Ray Phase Contrast Imaging with Nano-Fabrication.

Miao Houxun H Gomella Andrew A AA Harmon Katherine J KJ Bennett Eric E EE Chedid Nicholas N Znati Sami S Panna Alireza A Foster Barbara A BA Bhandarkar Priya P Wen Han H

Scientific reports 20150828

X-ray phase-contrast imaging is a promising approach for improving soft-tissue contrast and lowering radiation dose in biomedical applications. While current tabletop imaging systems adapt to common x-ray tubes and large-area detectors by employing absorptive elements such as absorption gratings or monolithic crystals to filter the beam, we developed nanometric phase gratings which enable tabletop x-ray far-field interferometry with only phase-shifting elements, leading to a substantial enhancem ...[more]

PMID: 26315891

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Project description:X-ray phase-contrast (XPCi) imaging methods are an emerging medical imaging approach that provide significantly better soft tissue contrast and could function as a viable extension to conventional X-ray, CT, and even some MRI. Absorption gratings play a central role in grating-based XPCi systems, especially because they enable the acquisition of three images in a single exposure: transmission, refraction, and dark-field. An impediment to commercial development and adoption of XPCi imaging systems is the lack of large area, high aspect ratio absorption gratings. Grating technology development, primarily due to technological limitations, has lagged system development and today prevents the scaling up of XPCi system into a footprint and price point acceptable to the medical market. In this work, we report on a self-aligned multi-layer grating fabrication process that can enable large-area X-ray absorption gratings with micron-scale feature sizes. We leverage large-area fabrication techniques commonly employed by the thin-film transistor (TFT) display industry. Conventional ITO-on-glass substrates are used with a patterned film of Cr/Au/Cr that serves as a self-aligned lithography mask for backside exposure. Commonly available SU-8 photoresist is patterned using the backside exposure mask followed by an electroplating step to fill the gaps in the SU-8 with X-ray attenuating material. Consequently, the electroplated patterned material acts as a self-aligned photomask for subsequent SU-8 layer patterning and so forth. The repeatability of the reported process makes it suitable for achieving higher aspect ratio structures and is advantageous over previously reported X-ray LIGA approaches. A prototype three-layer grating, with a thickness of around [Formula: see text], having a visibility of 0.28 at [Formula: see text] with a [Formula: see text] active area was fabricated on a 4-inch glass substrate and demonstrated by modifying a commercially available 3D propagation-based XPCi Microscope. The scalable and cost-effective approach to build larger area X-ray gratings reported in this work can help expedite the commercial development and adoption of previously reported Talbot-Lau, speckle-tracking, as well as coded-aperture XPCi systems for large-area clinical and industrial applications.

Dataset Information

Enhancing Tabletop X-Ray Phase Contrast Imaging with Nano-Fabrication.

Publications

Enhancing Tabletop X-Ray Phase Contrast Imaging with Nano-Fabrication.

Similar Datasets

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