High-resolution X-ray phase-contrast imaging with a grating interferometer

High-resolution X-ray imaging is a promising technique for studies of biological structures on a micron-scale. Conventional X-ray imaging is limited by its poor soft tissue contrast. X-ray phasecontrast imaging has the potential to significantly improve the biological contrast in terms of the refractive index variation. In this paper, we analyze an X-ray grating interferometer we set up with a micro-focus X-ray source and a flat panel detector. The system utilizes the geometric magnification for high-resolution imaging. After our initial calibration, the visibility function reaches about 10%. The experiments demonstrate that the spatial resolution of the system is about 10 μm, which helps reveal features invisible with X-ray attenuation-based imaging.