Spectral µCT with an energy resolving and interpolating pixel detector.

A main challenge in x-ray µCT with laboratory radiation derives from the broad spectral content, which in contrast to monochromatic synchrotron radiation gives rise to reconstruction artifacts and impedes quantitative reconstruction. Due to the low spectral brightness of these sources, monochromatization is unfavorable and parallel recording of a broad bandpath is practically indispensable. While conventional CT sums up all spectral components into a single detector value, spectral CT discriminates the data in several spectral bins. Here we show that a new generation of charge integrating and interpolating pixel detectors is ideally suited to implement spectral CT with a resolution in the range of 10 µm. We find that the information contained in several photon energy bins largely facilitates automated classification of materials, as demonstrated for of a mouse cochlea. Bones, soft tissues, background and metal implant materials are discriminated automatically. Importantly, this includes taking a better account of phase contrast effects, based on tailoring reconstruction parameters to specific energy bins.

Publisher Correction: Four dimensional material movies: High speed phase-contrast tomography by backprojection along dynamically curved paths.

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Four dimensional material movies: High speed phase-contrast tomography by backprojection along dynamically curved paths.

We present an approach towards four dimensional (4d) movies of materials, showing dynamic processes within the entire 3d structure. The method is based on tomographic reconstruction on dynamically curved paths using a motion model estimated by optical flow techniques, considerably reducing the typical motion artefacts of dynamic tomography. At the same time we exploit x-ray phase contrast based on free propagation to enhance the signal from micron scale structure recorded with illumination times down to a millisecond (ms). The concept is demonstrated by observing the burning process of a match stick in 4d, using high speed synchrotron phase contrast x-ray tomography recordings. The resulting movies reveal the structural changes of the wood cells during the combustion.

Combined in-situ imaging of structural organization and elemental composition of substantia nigra neurons in the elderly.

Human dopaminergic system in general, and substantia nigra (SN) neurons, in particular, are implicated in the pathologies underlying the human brain aging. The interplay between aberrations in the structural organization and elemental composition of SN neuron bodies has recently gained in importance as selected metals: Fe, Cu, Zn, Ca were found to trigger oxidative-stress-mediated aberration in their molecular assembly due to concomitant protein (alpha-synuclein, tau-protein) aggregation, gliosis and finally oxidative stress. In the present study, we demonstrate an integrated approach to the analysis of the structural organization, assembly, and metals' accumulation in two distinct areas of SN: in the neuromelanin neurons and neuropil. By using the highly brilliant source of PETRA III and the Kirkpatrick-Baez nano-focus, large area histological brain slices are scanned at the sub-neuronal resolution, taking advantage of continuous motor movement and reduced acquisition time. Elemental analysis with synchrotron radiation based X-ray Fluorescence (SRXRF) is combined with X-ray Phase Contrast Imaging (XPCI) to correct for inherent aberrations in the samples' density and thickness, often referred to as the mass thickness effect. Based on the raw SRXRF spectra, we observed the accumulation of P, S, Cl, K, Ca, Fe, Cu and Zn predominantly in the SN neurons. However, upon the mass thickness correction, the distributions of Cl became significantly more uniform. Simultaneously with the fluorescence signal, the Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS) is recorded by a pixel detector positioned in the far-field, enabling fast online computation of the darkfield and differential phase contrast (DPC). The data has demonstrated the SN neurons and neuropil produces excellent contrast which is due to their different mass density and scattering strength, indicative of differences in local structure and assembly therein. In all, the results show that combined SRXRF-XPCI-SAXS experiments can robustly serve as a unique tool for understanding the interplay between the chemical composition and structural organization that may drive the biochemical age-related processes occurring in the human dopaminergic system.

Actin bundles cross-linked with α-actinin studied by nanobeam X-ray diffraction.

We have performed scanning nano-beam small-angle X-ray scattering (nano-SAXS) experiments on in vitro-formed actin filaments cross-linked with [Formula: see text]-actinin. The experimental method combines a high resolution in reciprocal space with a real space resolution as given by the spot-size of the nano-focused X-ray beam, and opens up new opportunities to study local super-molecular structures of actin filaments. In this first proof-of-concept, we show that the local orientation of actin bundles formed by the cross-linking can be visualized by the X-ray darkfield maps. The filament bundles give rise to highly anisotropic diffraction patterns showing distinct streaks perpendicular to the bundle axes. Interestingly, some diffraction patterns exhibit a fine structure in the form of intensity modulations allowing for a more detailed analysis of the order within the bundles. A first empirical quantification of these modulations is included in the present work.