ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the state-of-the-art in soft X-ray tomography (SXT) in biological imaging. It describes the physical basis for soft X-ray imaging and the essential components of a soft X-ray microscope. The chapter explains the model for image formation of a soft X-ray microscope and also discusses the practical limitations of a SXT system; these include the optical and statistical limitations, as well as those that are derivative of radiation damage to the sample. It explores the image alignment and reconstruction methods. The chapter presents the image segmentation, which aids in the interpretation of the data that are present in an image. It reviews the present applications for SXT in cell biology. The chapter provides a summary of the future goals for SXT and its considerable potential for use in correlated imaging studies. The soft X-ray illumination used for SXT data acquisition minimally interacts with water compared with the attenuation by biomolecules.
