Quantitative comparison of imaging performance of x-ray interferometric imaging and diffraction enhanced imaging.

For detailed biomedical observations using the optimum phase-contrast x-ray imaging, quantitative comparisons of imaging performances of two major imaging methods--x-ray interferometric imaging (XII) and diffraction enhanced imaging (DEI)--were performed. Density sensitivity and spatial resolution of each imaging method were evaluated using phantom tomograms obtained by each method with the same x-ray dosage. For practical comparison of the methods, biological samples were also observed under the same conditions. The results show that XII has a higher sensitivity than that of DEI and is thus suitable for observation of soft biological tissues. On the other hand, DEI has a wider dynamic range of density and is thus suitable for observation of samples with large differences in density of different regions.