Chemical element mapping by x-ray ghost fluorescence

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel focusing-free x-ray fluorescence imaging technique using ghost imaging combined with compressed sensing, significantly reducing measurement time and radiation exposure, and enabling high-resolution chemical element mapping with tabletop sources.

Contribution

The authors develop a new ghost imaging method for x-ray fluorescence that eliminates the need for focusing and raster scanning, improving speed and resolution.

Findings

Reduces measurement time and radiation exposure by over 80%.

Enables high-resolution chemical element mapping with tabletop x-ray sources.

Expands potential applications to medical imaging and homeland security.

Abstract

Chemical element mapping is an imaging tool that provides essential information on composite materials and it is crucial for a broad range of fields ranging from fundamental science to numerous applications. Methods that exploit x-ray fluorescence are very advantageous and are widely used, but require focusing of the input beam and raster scanning of the sample. Thus the methods are slow and exhibit limited resolution due to focusing challenges. We demonstrate a new focusing free x-ray fluorescence method based ghost imaging that overcomes those limitations. We combine our procedure with compressed sensing to reduce the measurement time and the exposure to radiation by more than 80%. Since our method does not require focusing, it opens the possibility for improving the resolution and image quality of chemical element maps with tabletop x-ray sources and for extending the applicability of x-ray fluorescence detection to new fields such as medical imaging and homeland security applications