Tunable X-Ray Dark-Field Imaging for Sub-Resolution Feature Size Quantification in Porous Media

Tunable X-Ray Dark-Field Imaging for Sub-Resolution Feature Size Quantification in Porous Media

B. Blykers, C. Organista Castelblanco, M.N. Boone, M. Kagias, F. Marone, M. Stampanoni, T. Bultreys, V. Cnudde, and J. Aelterman

Pore-scale imaging suffers from a trade-off between sample size and resolution, complicating imaging of materials with broad feature size distributions. Here, we propose a multiscale method using dark-field tomography. Alumina particles with different pore sizes (50 vs 150 nm) were imaged at TOMCAT (Swiss Light Source). The particles could not be distinguished from each other by regular micro-CT due to their similar density and their pores being unresolved. Nevertheless, our method allowed to quantify the sub-resolution pore sizes of individual particles. This demonstrates how dark-field image analysis can be used for multi-scale analyses of heterogeneous materials (e.g. example 1, example2).

Scientific Reports 11, 18446 (2021)
Corresponding Authors: Tom Bultreys

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