Tissue Scaffolds Characterization Using Synchrotron Radiation Micro-Computed Tomography with Helical Acquisition Mode

In the field of tissue engineering, hydrogel scaffolds have gained significant attention due to their unique properties, due to their unique properties. Accurate imaging techniques are essential for studying the internal structure and properties of these scaffolds. Hydrogel scaffolds have very low density and synchrotron radiation micro-computed tomography (SR-μCT) shows high contrast with three-dimensional and non-invasive characterization. Despite many advantages, SR-μCT image quality for hydrogel still needs to be improved due to common ring artifacts resulted from systematic errors or defects on the scintillator, monochromator, or filters. Such artifacts usually reduce the accuracy when visualizing and charactering samples. Methods have been developed to reduce the ring artifacts, e.g., low-pass filtering algorithm, but these approaches suffer from limitations. This work integrates SR-μCT with the helical acquisition mode (SR-μHCT) to avoid the ring artifacts issues. SR-μHCT involves two motions, a horizontal rotation and a vertical motion which can spread the intensity of ring artifacts over larger regions in the vertical direction, therefore reducing the effects of artifacts.