Iterative reconstruction in X-ray computed laminography from differential phase measurements

Phase-contrast X-ray computed laminography is demonstrated for the volume reconstruction of extended flat objects, not suitable to the usual tomographic scan. Using a Talbot interferometer, differential phase measurements are obtained and used to reconstruct the real part of the complex refractive index. The specific geometry of laminography leads to unsampled frequencies in a double cone in the reciprocal space, which degrades the spatial resolution in the direction normal to the object plane. First, the filtered backprojection formula from differential measurements is derived. Then, reconstruction is improved by the use of prior information of compact support and limited range, included in an iterative filtered backprojection algorithm. An implementation on GPU hardware was required to handle the reconstruction of volumes within a reasonable time. A synchrotron radiation experiment on polymer meshes is reported and results of the iterative reconstruction are compared with the simpler filtered backprojection.