Improvement in quantitative phase mapping by a hard x-ray microscope equipped with a Lau interferometer

X-ray phase contrast imaging offers a complementary modality next to conventional absorption. To reveal internal structures of soft materials in high resolution, an X-ray phase imaging microscope has been developed by installing a Lau interferometer into a commercially available ZEISS Xradia 800 Ultra-nano computed tomography X-ray microscope. On this system, a twin phase image is once generated through measurements of interference fringes. In order to produce a quantitative X-ray phase map, the twin phase image should be treated by deconvolution. However, conventional deconvolution results showed a reduction in image quality due to noise and artifacts. Therefore, we propose and evaluate the performance of an iterative deconvolution method. The results show that the proposed deconvolution method does not affect spatial resolution, increases the signal to noise ratio compared to that of the twin phase image, and is capable of imaging complex structures.