Method to study sample object size limit of small-angle x-ray scattering computed tomography

Small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) imaging is an emerging medical tool that can be used for in vivo detailed tissue characterization and has the potential to provide added contrast to conventional x-ray projection and CT imaging. We used a publicly available MC-GPU code to simulate x-ray trajectories in a SAXS-CT geometry for a target material embedded in a water background material with varying sample sizes (1, 3, 5, and 10 mm). Our target materials were water solution of gold nanoparticle (GNP) spheres with a radius of 6 nm and a water solution with dissolved serum albumin (BSA) proteins due to their well-characterized scatter profiles at small angles and highly scattering properties. The background material was water. Our objective is to study how the reconstructed scatter profile degrades at larger target imaging depths and increasing sample sizes. We have found that scatter profiles of the GNP in water can still be reconstructed at depths up to 5 mm embedded at the center of a 10 mm sample. Scatter profiles of BSA in water were also reconstructed at depths up to 5 mm in a 10 mm sample but with noticeable signal degradation as compared to the GNP sample. This work presents a method to study the sample size limits for future SAXS-CT imaging systems.