Tomography with chemical speciation

In various scientific fields -- such as materials sciences, biology or even astrophysics -- the relation between morphology and the chemical composition is a key for the understanding of structures and their function. Hard x-ray tomography is a suitable tool for structural analyzes on the micrometer scale and can give additional chemical information by combining this imaging technique with spectroscopic methods. In chemistry, X-ray absorption near-edge spectroscopy (XANES) is a well-known and established technique. By scanning the X-ray energy in the vicinity (50-100 eV) of the absorption edge of an element, information can be obtained about the oxidation state of the probed atoms. We used a fast read-out and low noise detector for XANES imaging and were able to distinguish different oxidation states in three dimension performing tomographic scans at different characteristic energies of the probed atom.