X-ray tensor tomography for small-grained polycrystals with strong texture.

Small-angle X-ray tensor tomography and the related wide-angle X-ray tensor tomography are X-ray imaging techniques that tomographically reconstruct the anisotropic scattering density of extended samples. In previous studies, these methods have been used to image samples where the scattering density depends slowly on the direction of scattering, typically modeling the directionality, the texture, with a spherical harmonics expansion up until order ℓ = 8 or lower. This study investigates the performance of several established algorithms from small-angle X-ray tensor tomography on samples with a faster variation as a function of scattering direction and compares their expected and achieved performance. The various algorithms are tested using wide-angle scattering data from an as-drawn steel wire with known texture to establish the viability of the tensor tomography approach for such samples and to compare the performance of existing algorithms.