Neutron laminography—a novel approach to three-dimensional imaging of flat objects with neutrons

Computed tomography (CT) is a three-dimensional (3D) imaging method which, for compact or prolate (i.e. rather isotropically extended around the rotation axis) specimens, can yield artefact-free reconstructed cross-sections. Laterally extended specimens like plate-like objects, however, are much less amenable to CT since reliable projection data cannot be acquired from angles where the plate is oriented parallel to the irradiation direction.To overcome this drawback, computed laminography (CL) was introduced recently to imaging set-ups at synchrotron storage rings. Here, we report on the first implementation of computed laminography with neutron radiation, showing measurements that were performed at the ANTARES neutron imaging facility at the FRM II research reactor of Technische Universität München. In general, neutrons are highly interesting probes for imaging since they provide a sensitivity to chemical elements very different from X-rays, yielding complementary information about the specimens investigated. Like for X-ray laminography, we avoid the projection directions where the beam is parallel to the long extensions of the specimen. We accomplish this by tilting of the rotation axis with respect to the transmitted-beam to an angle smaller than 90° (which would be the limiting case of CT) and roughly aligning the specimen's surface normal parallel to this rotation axis. The principles of neutron laminography are introduced and first test experiments are described.