Speckle-tracking X-ray phase-contrast imaging for samples with obvious edge-enhancement effect

Compared to the grating or crystal-based X-ray phase contrast imaging, the speckle-tracking method has the advantages of a simple setup and two-dimensional imaging. However, the edge-enhancement effect prevents the application of the speckle-tracking imaging to a large variety of samples. In this letter, an image reconstruction method is proposed to solve this problem. The experimental results from phantom, a biomedical sample, and a sample with a speckle-resembling structure demonstrated that the proposed method is efficacious in eliminating the effect of edge enhancement. The proposed method may greatly expand the application of the speckle-tracking method to most biomedical and material samples.