Grating interferometry (GI) is a cutting-edge imaging technique that has the potential to revolutionize medical imaging. Using advanced X-ray optics, GI records three complementary signals in a single acquisition, the resulted rich contrast provides additional information to improve diagnostic contents and therefore open new opportunities for medical imaging. While GI methodology was extensively developed in the last decade, the bottleneck for implementation of the method into commercial equipment remains the reliable production of gratings and their high cost. The results of the MAGIC project offer solution to this problem. We developed a reliable fabrication method with cost reduction perspective by using the Metal Assisted Chemical Etching (MACE) of silicon combined with gold electroplating on 4 inches wafers. The economic impact is relevant since the method starts from conventional photolithography and does not require any etching machine, it could be realized in a chemistry laboratory by using some basic tools such as wet benches, hot-plate and safety protocols for the handling of hydrofluoric acid. We estimated that the running cost will be roughly 10 times lower than conventional reactive ion etching of silicon and commercial gratings produced by LIGA technology. The processing time is still 10 times longer in comparison to standard etching techniques but the employment of human resource for process executing is relatively short, being mainly focused on start/stop of operation and comparable to the other techniques. The know how generated by this project boost the use of silicon MACE as a new enabling technology, with a potential spread to other applications where low-cost microfabrication is required, such as MEMS, photonic devices, microfluidics etc.
