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Phase-contrast nano-tomography of bones and tissue samples
- The Figure shows an artistic representation of a set of coherent x-ray diffraction patterns that are used to reconstruct a high-resolution nanoCT image of a bone sample, highlighting particularly the canaliculi network between osteocyte cells in the bone.
Many important diseases - such as cancer or osteoporosis - are critically linked to structural changes of the material on the nanometer scale. Because light or electron microscopy cannot penetrate several tenths of micron thick samples deep enough, we develop an alternative x-ray for nano-scale tomographic imaging using large scale synchrotron or laser facilities. We believe that our approach will be useful to learn about early nano-structural changes associated osteoporosis, and eventually lead to a better clinical treatment of the disease.
Key publications:
1.) Dierolf, M., Thibault, P., Menzel, A., Kewish, C.M., Jefimovs, K., Schlichting, I., Von Koenig, K., Bunk, O. & Pfeiffer, F. (2010), "Ptychographic coherent diffractive imaging of weakly scattering specimens", New Journal of Physics. Vol. 12, pp. 035017.
2.) Dierolf, M., Menzel, A., Thibault, P., Schneider, P., Kewish, C.M., Wepf, R., Bunk, O. & Pfeiffer, F. (2010), "Ptychographic X-ray computed tomography at the nanoscale", Nature. Vol. 467(7314), pp. 436-439.
3.) Kewish, C.M., Thibault, P., Dierolf, M., Bunk, O., Menzel, A., Vila-Comamala, J., Jefimovs, K. & Pfeiffer, F. (2010), "Ptychographic characterization of the wavefield in the focus of reflective hard X-ray optics", Ultramicroscopy. Vol. 110(4), pp. 325-329.
Project leaders
Prof. Dr. Franz Pfeiffer
Dr. Pierre Thibault