Structured illumination for tomographic X-ray diffraction imaging.

Tomographic imaging of the molecular structure of an object is important for a variety of applications, ranging from medical and industrial radiography to security screening. X-ray diffraction imaging is the preeminent technique for performing molecular analysis of large volumes. Here we propose and demonstrate a new measurement architecture to improve the source and detector efficiency for diffraction imaging. In comparison with previous techniques, our approach reduces the required overall scan time by 1-2 orders of magnitude, which makes possible real-time scanning of a broad range of materials over a large volume using a table-top setup. This method, which relies on structuring spatially the illumination incident on an object moving relative to the X-ray source, is compatible with existing systems and has the potential to significantly enhance performance in an array of areas, such as medical diagnostic imaging and explosives detection.