Thermal x-ray diffraction and near-field phase contrast imaging

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that higher-order coherence of thermal x-ray sources can enhance resolution and contrast in diffraction and phase contrast imaging, achieving superresolution with minimal additional cost.

Contribution

The work introduces a method to improve x-ray imaging resolution and contrast using higher-order coherence of thermal sources, avoiding complex entangled photon schemes.

Findings

Achieved superresolution in x-ray diffraction.

Enhanced contrast in near-field phase contrast imaging.

Minimal additional cost compared to entangled photon methods.

Abstract

Using higher-order coherence of thermal light sources, the resolution power of standard x-ray imaging techniques can be enhanced. In this work, we applied the higher-order measurement to far-field x-ray diffraction and near-field phase contrast imaging (PCI), in order to achieve superresolution in x-ray diffraction and obtain enhanced intensity contrast in PCI. The cost of implementing such schemes is minimal compared to the methods that achieve similar effects by using entangled x-ray photon pairs.