In situ coherent diffractive imaging

Abstract

Coherent diffractive imaging (CDI) has been widely applied in the physical and biological sciences using synchrotron radiation, X-ray free-electron laser, high harmonic generation, electrons, and optical lasers. One of CDI’s important applications is to probe dynamic phenomena with high spatiotemporal resolution. Here, we report the development of a general in situ CDI method for real-time imaging of dynamic processes in solution. By introducing a time-invariant overlapping region as real-space constraint, we simultaneously reconstructed a time series of complex exit wave of dynamic processes with robust and fast convergence. We validated this method using optical laser experiments and numerical simulations with coherent X-rays. Our numerical simulations further indicated that in situ CDI can potentially reduce radiation dose by more than an order of magnitude relative to conventional CDI. With further development, we envision in situ CDI could be applied to probe a range of dynamic phenomena in the future.

Direct 2D spatial-coherence determination using the Fourier-analysis method: multi-parameter characterization of the P04 beamline at PETRA III

“…To gain detailed knowledge of the coherence properties of X-ray radiation, its manipulation, and especially its preservation plays an increasingly important role at synchrotron beamlines, not least because of present and future upgrades of synchrotron facilities to diffraction-limited storage rings, e.g., PETRA IV [1], ALS-U [2,3], ESRF-EBS [4] or MAX IV [5]. The most obvious beneficiaries of a high coherent flux are coherent imaging and scattering experiments such as Fourier-transform holography (FTH) [6][7][8][9], X-ray ptychography [10][11][12][13], coherent diffractive imaging (CDI) [14][15][16], scanning transmission X-ray microscopy (STXM) [17][18][19], as well as X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy (XPCS) [20][21][22]. For these experiments, the knowledge of the intrinsic coherence properties of the X-ray source, as well as the impact of beamline apertures and optics, is essential for optimizing the experimental conditions and a correct interpretation of the data.…”

Synchrotron Scattering Methods for Nanomaterials and Soft Matter Research

“…An important goal is to enable imaging of functional systems in nanoscience and biology with nm range resolution. In this respect, the potential of CDI for imaging a transient process has been demonstrated [143]. Indeed, the radiation damage is a limiting factor as the imaging requires at least an order of magnitude higher radiation dose than the corresponding diffraction measurement.…”

Laser-induced metastable mixed phase of AuNi nanoparticles: a coherent X-ray diffraction imaging study

“…Here, we present a visualization of the phase boundaries inside the particles and the rounding effect of crystal facets of AuNi nanoparticles under laser irradiation by using coherent X-ray diffraction imaging (CXDI) (Ayyer et al, 2016;Ulvestad et al, 2015;Lo et al, 2018;Mastropietro et al, 2017;Donnelly et al, 2017;Kim et al, 2018). The pulsed laser annealing transforms phase-separated AuNi nanoparticles to metastable mixed AuNi alloy nanoparticles.…”