Mini X-ray source with laser light allows microscopic 3-D imaging of living organisms

Physicists from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics and the TU München have developed a method using laser-generated X-rays and phase-contrast X-ray tomography to produce three-dimensional images of soft tissue structures in organisms.

With laser light, physicists in Munich have built a miniature X-ray source. In so doing, the researchers from the Laboratory of Attosecond Physics of the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics and the Technische Universität München (TUM) captured three-dimensional images of ultrafine structures in the body of a living organism for the first time with the help of laser-generated X-rays. Using light-generated radiation combined with phase-contrast X-ray tomography, the scientists visualized ultrafine details of a fly measuring just a few millimeters. Until now, such radiation could only be produced in expensive ring accelerators measuring several kilometers in diameter. By contrast, the laser-driven system in combination with phase-contrast X-ray tomography only requires a university laboratory to view soft tissues. The new imaging method could make future medical applications more cost-effective and space-efficient than is possible with today's technologies.