International Workshop on Advances in X-ray Imaging

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(ph. Roberto BarnabĂ )

The International Workshop on Advances in X-ray Imaging, held December 11-12, 2014 during the Elettra User Meeting, provided a forum to present and discuss the on-going developments and the multidisciplinary applications of a variety of X-ray imaging techniques. It was organized as a joint event with the European COST Network EXTREMA. The focus was on the recent advances in coherent diffraction imaging, holographic imaging, microtomography and ptychography based on last generation sources.

The workshop was well attended by over 100 participants from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, Australia, India and United States. The workshop began with welcome from Elettra president and chief executive officer Alfonso Franciosi. In the following six sessions twenty invited speakers presented the recent achievements in 2D and 3D X-ray imaging (workshop program) outlining the crucial role of synchrotrons and X-ray free electron lasers. In their talks they showed the new science made possible using large facilities and discussed the challenges and the future scientific directions that require further developments of the instrumentation, the x-ray sources and the data processing approaches. 

The poster session offered an opportunity to exchange of know-how and to debate technical developments and research prospects. The most vivid discussions, including the expectation from the XFELs and the diffraction limited synchrotrons radiation, the development of the photon optics, image detectors, new experimental protocols for medical imaging and image processing methods, were made during the two round tables. The round table on coherent imaging started with the presentations of Enrico Allaria and Ralf Menk from Elettra who showed the status and near future opportunities offered by the FERMI-FEL and the expected performance of the Percival detector that has to meet the stringent imaging requirements for following ultrafast dynamics using soft X-ray FELs. Among the hottest topics were (i) the opportunities opened by XFELs towards high-throughput imaging of biological samples allowing to monitor dynamics and analyze structural variations; (ii) the challenges of 3D ptychography with chemical sensitivity and time resolution; (iii) handling the huge amount of data and setting fast procedures for data processing during the experiments.

The round table on computed tomography (CT) started with the presentations of Giuliana Tromba and Diego Dreossi from Elettra who showed the status and expected developments in experimental protocols and 3D image processing, relevant to low-dose phase-contrast CT mainly applied to in-vivo studies of small animals and mammography. The most discussed topics were (i) the opportunities opened by the 3rd generation synchrotron sources for in-vivo imaging allowing to study tumors and other pathologies or the effects of therapies; (ii) the prospects offered by new 3D image reconstruction algebraic algorithms that can strongly reduce the required radiation dose and increase the features detectability; (iii) the challenges to handle artefacts in CT images related to experimental procedures and/or data pre-processing. 

Maya Kiskinova

 

 

 

 
Last Updated on Wednesday, 14 January 2015 15:56