Tomographic reconstruction in soft x-ray microscopy using focus-stack back-projection.

Tomographic reconstruction in soft x-ray microscopy is a powerful technique for obtaining high-resolution 3D images of biological samples. However, the depth of focus of such zone-plate-based microscopes is typically shorter than the thickness of many relevant biological objects, challenging the validity of the projection assumption used in conventional reconstruction algorithms. In order to make full use of the soft x-ray microscopes' high resolution, the tomographic reconstruction needs to take the depth of focus into account. Here we present a method to achieve high resolution in the full sample when the depth of focus is short compared to the sample thickness. The method relies on the back-projection of focus-stacked image data from x-ray microscopy. We demonstrate the method on theoretical and experimental data.

3D simulation of the image formation in soft x-ray microscopes.

In water-window soft x-ray microscopy the studied object is typically larger than the depth of focus and the sample illumination is often partially coherent. This blurs out-of-focus features and may introduce considerable fringing. Understanding the influence of these phenomena on the image formation is therefore important when interpreting experimental data. Here we present a wave-propagation model operating in 3D for simulating the image formation of thick objects in partially coherent soft x-ray microscopes. The model is compared with present simulation methods as well as with experiments. The results show that our model predicts the image formation of transmission soft x-ray microscopes more accurately than previous models.