X-ray microscopy of unstained biomaterials with propagation-based phase-contrast for enhanced full-field strain measurement

In this application note, ZEISS highlights the challenges in imaging soft tissues like cartilage, which require contrast enhancement often achieved through staining techniques that can alter tissue properties. To address this, propagation-based phase-contrast imaging is employed in the lab-based XRM ZEISS Xradia 510 Versa. This method enhances contrast in both articular cartilage and mineralized tissue without inducing tissue alterations, enabling digital volume correlation (DVC) to measure full-field strain at the cartilage-bone interface.