6 November 2026, 13:00
From the synchrotron to the lab (and back): Two decades of phase contrast research at UCL
Description AbstractX ray phase contrast imaging has arguably revolutionised how we image soft biological tissue and low Z materials more broadly and is now routinely available at many synchrotron beamlines For the past 20 years the Advanced X Ray Imaging group at UCL has been on a mission to translate the technology from synchrotrons to laboratory sources to increase availability facilitate easy access and enable impact in areas that a synchrotron technique cannot reach Some success can be reported we have developed methods of phase contrast that are less reliant on spatial coherence built a series of lab based systems demonstrated them on applications in biomedicine and beyond and are even about to start a clinical study Furthermore our lab systems are readily sensitive to ultra small angle scattering also referred to as dark field signals which are a proxy for sub resolution microstructure thus offering information that cannot be extracted from attenuation or phase images However and unsurprisingly lab based scans pose challenges compared to synchrotron ones such as limited spatial resolution low x ray flux and excessive scan times Recent work within the group has therefore focussed on these aspects which has led us to engineer a user controlled resolution functionality for our systems as well as rapid acquisition schemes Excitingly we are now striving to translate some of our methods back to the synchrotron where we want to enable dynamic imaging in three contrast channels attenuation phase dark field... AbstractX-ray phase contrast imaging has arguably revolutionised how we image soft biological tissue (and low-Z materials more broadly), and is now routinely available at many synchrotron beamlines. For the past 20 years, the Advanced X-Ray Imaging group at UCL has been on a mission to translate the technology from synchrotrons to laboratory sources, to increase availability, facilitate easy access, and enable impact in areas that a synchrotron technique cannot reach. Some success can be reported: we have developed methods of phase contrast that are less reliant on spatial coherence, built a series of lab-based systems, demonstrated them on applications in biomedicine and beyond, and are even about to start a clinical study. Furthermore, our lab systems are readily sensitive to ultra-small angle scattering (also referred to as dark-field) signals which are a proxy for sub-resolution...
Speaker(s): Charlotte Hagen, University College London (UCL), United Kingdom
Host: Elizabeth (Liz) Duke
Place: Seminar Room 48e
EMBL Hamburg
Additional information
Abstract
X-ray phase contrast imaging has arguably revolutionised how we image soft biological tissue (and low-Z materials more broadly), and is now routinely available at many synchrotron beamlines. For the past 20 years, the Advanced X-Ray Imaging group at UCL has been on a mission to translate the technology from synchrotrons to laboratory sources, to increase availability, facilitate easy access, and enable impact in areas that a synchrotron technique cannot reach. Some success can be reported: we have developed methods of phase contrast that are less reliant on spatial coherence, built a series of lab-based systems, demonstrated them on applications in biomedicine and beyond, and are even about to start a clinical study. Furthermore, our lab systems are readily sensitive to ultra-small angle scattering (also referred to as dark-field) signals which are a proxy for sub-resolution microstructure, thus offering information that cannot be extracted from attenuation or phase images. However, and unsurprisingly, lab-based scans pose challenges compared to synchrotron ones, such as limited spatial resolution, low x-ray flux, and excessive scan times. Recent work within the group has therefore focussed on these aspects, which has led us to engineer a user-controlled resolution functionality for our systems as well as rapid acquisition schemes. Excitingly, we are now striving to translate some of our methods back to the synchrotron, where we want to enable dynamic imaging in three contrast channels (attenuation, phase, dark-field).