Polychromatic X-ray in-line phase-contrast tomography for soft tissue

An in-line phase-contrast computed tomography algorithm is proposed for the reconstruction of the three-dimensional distribution of the electron density of a weak absorption sample using micro-focus X-ray source. It exploits the natural combination of Feldkamp-Davis-Kress (FDK) cone-beam reconstruction algorithm with a phase retrieval algorithm based on a modified phase-attenuation duality. The effects of the coherence of X-rays and the revolution of the detector are also incorporated into this algorithm. Then an experimental demonstration is given and the results show that the proposed method can reconstruct the electron density of soft tissue effectively.