Two-photon X-ray Ghost Microscope

Abstract

X-ray imaging allows for a non-invasive image of the internal structure of an object. The most common form of X-ray imaging, projectional radiography, is simply a projection or "shadow" of the object rather than a point-to-point image possible with a lens. This technique fails to take advantage of the resolving capabilities of short-wavelength X rays. Various X-ray microscopes, typically operating with soft X rays (< 10 keV), use focusing X-ray optics to obtain higher resolution images of the internal structure of an object. Due to the short focal length of focusing X-ray optics, it becomes difficult to focus on the internal structure of larger objects in such a way to provide significant magnification to be resolvable. Here we present an imaging mechanism that utilizes two-photon X-ray ghost imaging to produce a true point-to-point image of the internal structure of an object, with the potential to introduce focusing X-ray optics or a scintillator-lens pairing to produce a magnified secondary ghost image. The focusing X-ray optics would image the primary ghost image (which has no physical structure to it) allowing the imaging of internal structures deeper than a standard X-ray microscope would allow. In principle, once some experimental barriers are overcome, this X-ray "ghost microscope" may achieve nanometer spatial resolution and open up new capabilities that would be of interest to the fields of physics, material science, and medical imaging.

Updated to correct typos and add a few new statements including one about the resolution of projectional radiology and one discussing experimental requirements for the desired X-ray source. Totaled at 17 pages with four figures. Submitted to Optics Express for consideration