Adaptive filtering method for reducing signal saturation induced artifacts in X-ray dark-field tomography

Description

Henrik Mäkinen, Heikki Suhonen, and Simo Huotari address in 2026 a failure mode of dark-field X-ray imaging, a technique that reveals microscopic fibers and pores invisible to ordinary scans. When a sample scatters too strongly, the signal saturates, retrieval math breaks down, and three-dimensional reconstructions fill with artifacts. Their fix filters the raw projections adaptively, strengthening only the regions where the signal nears saturation.

Filtered projections improved markedly in exactly those trouble spots. Reconstructions that previously failed became possible even with strong scatterers inside the sample. The method rides on the standard grating interferometer setup used with ordinary X-ray tubes. Lung imaging and mammography, the field's flagship medical hopes, both involve the kind of fine structure that saturates, so the repair widens what clinics might eventually scan.

Catalog record

Source: https://europepmc.org/article/MED/PMC13494008