Laboratory-based quantitative hard x-ray phase microscopy in one dimension using waveguides

We report on the quantitative hard x-ray phase microscopy obtained with a laboratory source equipped with an x-ray planar waveguide. The waveguide, acting as a small secondary source with increased coherence, allows for phase contrast microscopy to be measured from a phase-only one-dimensional object. We analyzed different strategies and their performances for the case studied of low absorbing one-dimensional sample. It was found that the phase-only approximation for the sample enables the best performance in phase retrieval. Results obtained from experimental data are supported by phase retrieval performed on simulated data allowing an estimation of the performance of the algorithms. The ability to perform quantitative phase contrast microscopy with waveguides is an important advance for this novel x-ray phase contrast method, well suited to compact laboratory setups.