Near-field speckle-scanning-based x-ray imaging

Abstract: The x-ray near-field speckle-scanning concept is an approach recently introduced to obtain absorption, phase, and dark-field images of a sample. In this paper, we present ways of recovering from a sample its ultrasmall-angle x-ray scattering distribution using numerical deconvolution. We also show how to access the 2D phase gradient signal from random step scans, the latter having the potential to elude the flat-field correction error. Each feature is explained theoretically and demonstrated experimentally at a synchrotron x-ray facility.