Synchrotron radiation based analyzer-free dual-phase dark-field lung imaging approach for radiography and CT

Published

November 4, 2025

Author(s)

Daniel Josell, Simon Spindler, Alexandre Pereira, Caori Organista, Marie-Christine Zdora, Goran Lovric, Ginevra Lautizi, Christian Dullin, Adriano Contillo, Elena Longo, Nicolo Sodini, Lorenzo D'Amico, Lucia Romano, Konstantins Jefimovs, MIchal Rawlik, Giulana Tromba, Marco Stampanoni

Abstract

Lung diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease are a major health burden to the society, where early detection plays a crucial role for treatment success. For detection, as well as diagnosis and serial evaluation, imaging plays a major role, but lung diseases are often still diagnosed in progressed states for which effective causal therapies do not presently exist. Recently, dark-field lung imaging has been introduced as a promising technique for early stage detection of alterations in lung micro-structures. This work presents an analyzer-free, full-scale lung imaging system based on a dual-phase interferometer, which allows tuning and direct resolution of grating induced intensity fringes. It provides the classical absorption chest image with additional dark-field information without significant attenuation of the patient-exposed photon-flux or the cost of large area absorption gratings. The detailed system achieves a dark-field sensitivity adequate for lung imaging, governed by system autocorrelation lengths of up to 0.6 μm. The CT reconstructions show further evidence of the emergence of the dark-field in the parenchyma

Citation

Scientific Reports

Volume

15

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-22355-x

Local Download

Keywords

gold electrodeposition, gratings, imaging, superconformal, interferometer, lungs

Citation

Josell, D. , Spindler, S. , Pereira, A. , Organista, C. , Zdora, M. , Lovric, G. , Lautizi, G. , Dullin, C. , Contillo, A. , Longo, E. , Sodini, N. , D'Amico, L. , Romano, L. , Jefimovs, K. , Rawlik, M. , Tromba, G. and Stampanoni, M. (2025), Synchrotron radiation based analyzer-free dual-phase dark-field lung imaging approach for radiography and CT, Scientific Reports, [online], https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-22355-x, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=959280 (Accessed April 17, 2026)