title: Experimental Realisation of High-sensitivity Laboratory X-ray Grating-based Phase-contrast Computed Tomography.
abstract: The possibility to perform high-sensitivity X-ray phase-contrast imaging with laboratory grating-based phase-contrast computed tomography (gbPC-CT) setups is of great interest for a broad range of high-resolution biomedical applications. However, achieving high sensitivity with laboratory gbPC-CT setups still poses a challenge because several factors such as the reduced flux, the polychromaticity of the spectrum, and the limited coherence of the X-ray source reduce the performance of laboratory gbPC-CT in comparison to gbPC-CT at synchrotron facilities. In this work, we present our laboratory X-ray Talbot-Lau interferometry setup operating at 40 kVp and describe how we achieve the high sensitivity yet unrivalled by any other laboratory X-ray phase-contrast technique. We provide the angular sensitivity expressed via the minimum resolvable refraction angle both in theory and experiment, and compare our data with other differential phase-contrast setups. Furthermore, we show that the good stability of our high-sensitivity setup allows for tomographic scans, by which even the electron density can be retrieved quantitatively as has been demonstrated in several preclinical studies.
authors.affiliation: Lehrstuhl für Biomedizinische Physik, Physik-Department &Institut für Medizintechnik, Technische Universität München, Garching, Germany.
authors.forename: Lorenz
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Birnbacher
authors.affiliation: Lehrstuhl für Biomedizinische Physik, Physik-Department &Institut für Medizintechnik, Technische Universität München, Garching, Germany.
authors.forename: Marian
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Willner
authors.affiliation: Lehrstuhl für Biomedizinische Physik, Physik-Department &Institut für Medizintechnik, Technische Universität München, Garching, Germany.
authors.forename: Astrid
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Velroyen
authors.affiliation: Lehrstuhl für Biomedizinische Physik, Physik-Department &Institut für Medizintechnik, Technische Universität München, Garching, Germany.
authors.forename: Mathias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Marschner
authors.affiliation: Zentrum für Material- und Küstenforschung, Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, Geesthacht, Germany.
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hipp
authors.affiliation: Institut für Mikrostrukturtechnik, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Meiser
authors.affiliation: Institut für Mikrostrukturtechnik, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany.
authors.forename: Frieder
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Koch
authors.affiliation: Institut für Mikrostrukturtechnik, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany.
authors.forename: Tobias
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Schröter
authors.affiliation: Institut für Mikrostrukturtechnik, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany.
authors.forename: Danays
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kunka
authors.affiliation: Institut für Mikrostrukturtechnik, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany.
authors.forename: Jürgen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mohr
authors.affiliation: Lehrstuhl für Biomedizinische Physik, Physik-Department &Institut für Medizintechnik, Technische Universität München, Garching, Germany.
authors.forename: Franz
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Pfeiffer
authors.affiliation: Lehrstuhl für Biomedizinische Physik, Physik-Department &Institut für Medizintechnik, Technische Universität München, Garching, Germany.
authors.forename: Julia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Herzen
mesh_terms: D002531:Cerebellum / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006801:Humans; D007368:Interferometry; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods*