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Direct tomography with chemical-bond contrast

Nature Materials volume 10, pages 489–493 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

Three-dimensional (3D) X-ray imaging methods have advanced tremendously during recent years. Traditional tomography uses absorption as the contrast mechanism, but for many purposes its sensitivity is limited. The introduction of diffraction1,2,3,4, small-angle scattering5,6,7, refraction8,9,10, and phase11,12,13,14 contrasts has increased the sensitivity, especially in materials composed of light elements (for example, carbon and oxygen). X-ray spectroscopy15,16,17,18,19, in principle, offers information on element composition and chemical environment. However, its application in 3D imaging over macroscopic length scales has not been possible for light elements. Here we introduce a new hard-X-ray spectroscopic tomography with a unique sensitivity to light elements. In this method, dark-field section images are obtained directly without any reconstruction algorithms. We apply the method to acquire the 3D structure and map the chemical bonding in selected samples relevant to materials science. The novel aspects make this technique a powerful new imaging tool, with an inherent access to the molecular-level chemical environment.

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Figure 1: The principle of the experiment.
Figure 2: Scattering-based direct tomography.
Figure 3: Direct chemical-bond tomography from a diamond–graphite phantom specimen.
Figure 4: Application of direct tomography to a layered C/SiC sample.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank L. Simonelli, V. Giordano, G. Vankó, H. Suhonen, A. Kallonen, C. Henriquet, C. Ponchut, and T. Ahlgren for their support, help, and invaluable discussions. T.P. and K.H. were supported by the Academy of Finland under the contract 1127462, and S.H. by University of Helsinki research funds (project 490076).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, F-38043 Grenoble, BP 220, France

    Simo Huotari, Tuomas Pylkkänen, Roberto Verbeni & Giulio Monaco

  2. Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, FI-00014 Helsinki, PO Box 64, Finland

    Simo Huotari, Tuomas Pylkkänen & Keijo Hämäläinen

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  1. Simo Huotari
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  2. Tuomas Pylkkänen
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Contributions

S.H., T.P., R.V., G.M. and K.H. designed and carried out the experiments and wrote the paper; S.H. and T.P. analysed the data.

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Correspondence to Simo Huotari.

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Huotari, S., Pylkkänen, T., Verbeni, R. et al. Direct tomography with chemical-bond contrast. Nature Mater 10, 489–493 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3031

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