Quick x-ray microtomography using a laser-driven betatron source

Laser-driven x-ray sources are an emerging alternative to conventional x-ray tubes and synchrotron sources. We present results on microtomographic x-ray imaging of a cancellous human bone sample using synchrotron-like betatron radiation. The source is driven by a 100-TW-class titanium–sapphire laser system and delivers over 10⁸ X-ray photons per second. Compared to earlier studies, the acquisition time for an entire tomographic dataset has been reduced by more than an order of magnitude. Additionally, the reconstruction quality benefits from the use of statistical iterative reconstruction techniques. Depending on the desired resolution, tomographies are thereby acquired within minutes, which is an important milestone toward real-life applications of laser–plasma x-ray sources.