Plenoptic x-ray microscopy

TL;DR

This paper introduces an x-ray plenoptic microscope that captures multiple projections simultaneously, enabling depth-resolved imaging and tomographic reconstruction from a single exposure, advancing 3D x-ray imaging capabilities.

Contribution

It presents the first x-ray plenoptic microscope using a micro-capillary array, allowing rapid, depth-resolved imaging from a single x-ray exposure, unlike previous visible-light-only systems.

Findings

Simultaneous acquisition of 100-1000 x-ray projections.

Ability to reconstruct tomographic slices at various depths.

Effective imaging of weakly absorbing biological and artificial objects.

Abstract

Plenoptic cameras use arrays of micro-lenses to capture multiple views of the same scene in a single compound image. They enable refocusing on different planes and depth estimation. However, until now, all types of plenoptic computational imaging have been limited to visible light. We demonstrate an x-ray plenoptic microscope that uses a concentrating micro-capillary array instead of a micro-lens array and can simultaneously acquire from one hundred to one thousand x-ray projections of imaged volumes that are located in the focal spot region of the micro-capillary array. Hence, tomographic slices at various depths near the focal plane can be reconstructed in a way similar to tomosynthesis, but from a single x-ray exposure. The microscope enables depth-resolved imaging of small subvolumes in large samples and can be used for imaging of weakly absorbing artificial and biological objects by means of propagation phase-contrast.