Diffraction contrast tomography

In this application note, ZEISS provides an overview with experimental data on diffraction contrast tomography. X-ray tomography has operated under two primary contrast mechanisms for some time: X-ray absorption and phase contrast, which both rely on material density differences within the sample. However, single-phase polycrystalline materials (e.g. steels, alloys, etc.) do not exhibit any significant contrast using absorption or phase mechanisms. Synchrotron-based X-ray microscopy (XRM) has demonstrated results in this area for about a decade with diffraction contrast tomography (DCT), which provides crystallographic/diffraction information from poly-crystalline samples, non-destructively, in 3D.