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![[Figure 3]](vv5089fig3mag.jpg)
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Figure 3
High-definition X-ray fluorescence tomography enables virtual sectioning to expose the internal distribution of particular elements. Shown here is a single-slice X-ray tomogram of an immature rice grain that has been pulsed with germanic acid to mimic the uptake of arsenite by rice. It is generally known that arsenite enters through the silicic acid pathway; by using Ge as a proxy for Si, (inferred) silicic and arsenite distributions can be mapped nondestructively and at high resolution to further understand transport mechanisms (Carey et al., 2011  ). At left is the sinogram, a projection line from a single height along the rotation axis, shown as a function of rotation angle (the name comes from the fact that off-axis features trace a sine wave as the sample is rotated). Standard tomographic reconstruction yields the two-dimensional image shown at right, which is a tomographic `slice' of the object at that height along the rotation axis with Ge concentration shown in red, Zn concentration in green, and overall mass as estimated from Compton scattering shown in shades of gray. These data were acquired using the X-ray fluorescence microprobe beamline at the Australian Synchrotron (Fig. 2); the measurement covered a 4.6 mm scan width at a resolution of 2 µm and a per-pixel transit time of ∼1.9 ms, so that acquisition of projections over 2000 angular steps over a 360° range (4.6 Mpixel) took less than 3 h. By collecting data over a 360° angular range rather than 180°, self-absorption effects could be gauged; these were found to be minimal for Ge and moderate for Zn, while lighter elements were strongly affected (not shown here). The inset shows a detail of the small hairs that grow on the outside of the husk. |
![[Figure 3]](vv5089fig3.jpg)
 | JOURNAL OF SYNCHROTRON RADIATION |
ISSN: 1600-5775
