Full three-dimensional direction-dependent X-ray scattering tomography

Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) detects the angular-dependent, coherently scattered X-ray photons, which provide improved contrast among different types of tissues or materials in medical diagnosis and material characterizations. By combining SAXS with computed tomography (CT), coherent scattering computed tomography (CSCT) enables the detection of spatially-resolved, material-specific scattering profile inside an extended object. However, conventional CSCT lacks the ability to distinguish direction-dependent coherent scattering signal, because of its assumptions that the materials are amorphous with isotropic scattering profiles. To overcome this issue, we propose a new CSCT imaging strategy, which can resolve the three-dimensional scattering profile for each object pixel, by incorporating detector movement into each CSCT projection measurement. The full reconstruction of the three-dimensional momentum transfer profile of a two-dimensional object has been successfully demonstrated. Our setup only requires a table-top Xray source and a panel detector. The presented method demonstrates the potential to achieve low-cost, high-specificity X-ray tissue imaging and material characterization.