Development Of Simulations For A Mesh-Based X-Ray Phase Imaging System

X-ray images of low-density materials, such as soft tissue, provide inherently low contrast due to their subtle attenuation differences. However, differences in phase imparted to x rays can be substantial, giving significantly improved contrast. The barrier to widespread implementation of x-ray phase imaging is that most phase techniques require high spatial coherence of the x-ray beam. We have previously demonstrated that employing structured illumination produced by a stainless-steel wire mesh can significantly loosen this coherence requirement. We present a computational model utilizing ray tracing that allows us to explore its design space and to optimize our phase reconstruction algorithms.