Hard x-ray quantitative non-interferometric phase-contrast microscopy

We report the results of quantitative phase-contrast imaging experiments us ing synchrotron radiation, in-line imaging geometry and a non-interferometr ic phase retrieval technique. This quantitative imaging method is fast, sim ple, robust, does not require sophisticated x-ray optical elements and can potentially provide submicron spatial resolution over a field of view of th e order of centimetres. In the present experiment a spatial resolution of a pproximately 0.8 mu m has been achieved in images of a polystyrene sphere u sing 19.6 keV x-rays. We demonstrate that appropriate processing of phase-c ontrast images obtained in the in-line geometry can reveal important new in formation about the internal structure of weakly absorbing organic samples. We believe that this technique will also be useful in phase-contrast tomog raphy.