Direct access to the moments of scattering distributions in x-ray imaging

The scattering signal obtained by phase-sensitive x-ray imaging methods provides complementary information about the sample on a scale smaller than the utilised pixels, which offers the potential for dose reduction by increasing pixel sizes. Deconvolution-based data analysis provides multiple scattering contrasts but suffers from time consuming data processing. Here, we propose a moment-based analysis that provides equivalent scattering contrasts while speeding up data analysis by almost three orders of magnitude. The availability of rapid data processing will be essential for applications that require instantaneous results such as medical diagnostics, production monitoring, and security screening. Further, we experimentally demonstrate that the additional scattering information provided by the moments with an order higher than two can be retrieved without increasing exposure time or dose. (C) 2018 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license