Reconstruction of refractive index discontinuities from truncated phase-contrast tomography projections

Propagation-based phase-contrast tomography is a noninterferometric imaging technique that can reconstruct the complex refractive index distribution of an object. To accomplish such a reconstruction using existing methods, however, there must be no truncation of the phase-contrast projection data in the detector planes at each tomographic view angle. We demonstrate that local tomography reconstruction theory can be applied for reconstruction of refractive index discontinuities in two-dimensional objects from truncated phase-contrast projections acquired in the near-Fresnel zone. Numerical results are presented to corroborate our theoretical assertions. (C) 2005 American Institute of Physics.