New Technique for High Resolution X-ray Imaging

Swiss Researchers of the Department of Physics at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, in Switzerland, have demonstrated the practicality of a new high-resolution x-ray imaging technique called 'Dark-field x-ray imaging' that can be used to generate highly detailed images of bones and to distinguish between substances that look identical in conventional x-ray images, such as explosives and cheese. The images generated by this technique reveals fine structures that are invisible using conventional techniques.

Conventional x-ray imaging relies on information about how an object absorbs radiation, but more complex interactions than simple absorption are happening, like scattering of the beam. The more information that can be gleaned about these interactions, the better the contrast of the images.

Dark-field imaging technique thus relies on information about how a sample scatters the radiation, providing a higher contrast image of, say, the bones in a chicken wing (bottom) than conventional x-ray imaging (top) does.

The researchers are now investigating whether their approach might also increase the resolution of medical imaging techniques such as mammograms and computed-tomography (CT) scans.

Image Credit: Franz Pfeiffer, Assistant Professor of physics, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne