Performance analysis of X-Ray phase-contrast interferometers with respect to grating layouts

The grating-based phase-contrast imaging approach is highly dependent on the quality of the used gratings. While the fabrication of gratings for the soft X-ray range is more or less well controllable, the fabrication for the hard X-ray range (>; 30 keV) is more challenging as the gratings must have high aspect ratios and thus fine structures. One of the best fabrication technologies for such gratings is LIGA (Lithography, Electroplating and Molding). However, due to such small structures and high aspect ratio it is unavoidable that the gratings become non-perfect and have deformations. Since the fabrication is complex, expensive and time consuming, a simple way is needed to assess the influence of such deformations on the signal and also a simple way to design and test new grating layouts. This work presents a simulation framework for X-ray phase-contrast imaging which allows to model, simulate and assess the quality of arbitrary grating layouts in an easier, cheaper and faster way. Furthermore, it allows the assessment of the quality of new grating layouts as well as of existing gratings.