Phase-contrast X-ray imaging
Phase-contrast X-ray imaging or phase-sensitive X-ray imaging is a general term for different technical methods that use information concerning changes in the phase of an X-ray beam that passes through an object in order to create its images. Standard X-ray imaging techniques like radiography or computed tomography rely on a decrease of the X-ray beam's intensity when traversing the sample, which can be measured directly with the assistance of an X-ray detector. In PCI however, the beam's phase shift caused by the sample is not measured directly, but is transformed into variations in intensity, which then can be recorded by the detector. In addition to producing projection images, PCI, like conventional transmission, can be combined with tomographic techniques to obtain the 3D distribution of the real part of the refractive index of the sample. When applied to samples that consist of atoms with low atomic number Z, PCI is more sensitive to density variations in the sample than conventional transmission-based X-ray imaging. This leads to images with improved soft tissue contrast.
