A new theory of phase contrast x ray imaging based on Wigner distributions英文文献.pdfVIP

A new theory of phase-contrast x-ray imaging based on Wigner distributions Xizeng Wua) Department of Radiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama 35233 Hong Liu Center for Bioengineering and School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma 73019 Received 10 May 2004; revised 4 June 2004; accepted for publication 7 June 2004; published 13 August 2004 There is a pressing need for a comprehensive theory for phase-contrast x-ray imaging to guide its development and clinical applications. This work presents such a theory as the foundation for deriving these guidelines. The new theory is based on the Wigner-distributions for the parabolic wave equations, and it is more general than the present theories based on the Fresnel–Kirchhoff diffraction theory. The new theory shows for the first time how the complex degree of coherence CDC of the incident x-ray beam determines the phase-contrast visibility in general, and how the reduced complex degree of coherence RCDC for an anode-source is equal to the system’s optical transfer function for geometric unsharpness in particular. The role of detector resolution in phase visibility has been clarified as well. Computer simulations based on the new theory were conducted and optimal design parameters were derived for phase-contrast mammography systems. © 2004 American Association of Physicists in Medicine. DOI: 10.1118/1.1776672 Key words: x rays, phase-contrast, phase space I. INTRODUCTION x-ray mammography is the most effective imaging-modality so far for early detection of breast cancer. Ho