Dominik John
X-ray imaging has become an indispensable technique in both diagnostic and industrial imaging. Over the last two decades, phase-contrast and dark-field X-ray imaging have emerged as powerful complements to conventional attenuation-based methods, exploiting X-ray refraction and small-angle scattering to reveal soft-tissue structures and sub-resolution microstructural features, respectively.
Despite this promise, generating quantitative, high-fidelity images at high spatial resolution remains challenging across both synchrotron and laboratory environments. Our group has recently made significant advances on several of these fronts. In modulation-based X-ray phase microtomography, we demonstrated near-perfect retrieval efficiency (John, Optica, 2026) as well as an extended field of view (John, IEEE TIP, 2026), overcoming two longstanding practical limitations of the technique. In virtual histology, we introduced quantitative stain mapping, enabling spatially resolved, chemically specific contrast without physical sectioning (John, Advanced Science, 2026). Complementing these phase-contrast developments, we extended directional dark-field imaging to nanoscale full-field transmission X-ray microscopy, providing orientation-resolved sub-resolution structural information at unprecedented spatial scales (Wirtensohn, Light: Science & Applications, 2026). Together, these results demonstrate a coherent methodological framework for quantitative phase-contrast and dark-field imaging at both brilliant synchrotron sources and polychromatic laboratory setups. Here, we review this progress and highlight its implications for biomedical and materials-science applications.
References
John et al., "Quantitative Stain Mapping in X-Ray Virtual Histology," Advanced Science,
2026. https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202519783
John et al., "Near-perfect efficiency in X-ray phase microtomography," Optica,
2026. https://doi.org/10.1364/OPTICA.584432
John et al., "Extending the field of view in modulation-based X-ray phase microtomography," IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1109/TIP.2026.3676631
Wirtensohn et al., "Directional dark field for nanoscale full-field transmission X-ray microscopy," Light: Science & Applications, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-026-02263-z