When a sample is brought to the ANU CTLab for 3D imaging, the X-ray microscopes at the ANU CTLab collect many X-ray radiographs (i.e. images) of the sample. The sample is rotated and/or translated between each radiograph, so that each radiograph shows the sample in a different orientation. This set of radiographs is then synthesised into a 3D image, showing the complete internal structure of the sample.

 

Forming a 3D X-ray image used to require radiographs collected at certain very specific viewing angles. For example, the first lab-based 3D X-ray microscopes used viewing angles spaced at even intervals, in a full 360 degrees around the sample. Recent innovations have freed us from this constraint: the microscopes at the ANU CTLab can utilise ever stranger and more innovative scanning patterns. However, as this freedom is a recent innovation its potential is not well explored.

 

The student will work with scientists at the ANU CTLab to explore what different scanning patterns are possible and practical, given the new capabilities of these machines.

• Mathematics (Fourier transforms, Multivariable calculus, Linear algebra)
• Physics (Optics)
• Some experience in programming, preferably python.