Two-photon X-ray Ghost Microscope

Abstract: X-ray imaging allows for a non-invasive image of the internal structure of an object. The most common form of X-ray imaging, projectional radiography, is simply a projection or "shadow" of the object rather than a point-to-point image possible with a lens. This technique fails to take advantage of the resolving capabilities of short-wavelength X rays. Various X-ray microscopes, typically operating with soft X rays (< 10 keV), use focusing X-ray optics to obtain higher resolution images of the internal structure of an object. Due to the short focal length of focusing X-ray optics, it becomes difficult to focus on the internal structure of larger objects in such a way to provide significant magnification to be resolvable. Here we present an imaging mechanism that utilizes two-photon X-ray ghost imaging to produce a true point-to-point image of the internal structure of an object, with the potential to introduce focusing X-ray optics or a scintillator-lens pairing to produce a magnified secondary ghost image. The focusing X-ray optics would image the primary ghost image (which has no physical structure to it) allowing the imaging of internal structures deeper than a standard X-ray microscope would allow. In principle, once some experimental barriers are overcome, this X-ray "ghost microscope" may achieve nanometer spatial resolution and open up new capabilities that would be of interest to the fields of physics, material science, and medical imaging.