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[en] We report on a successful demonstration of coherent diffraction imaging (CDI) by using the EUV-FEL at the SPring-8 Compact SASE Source (SCSS). Strong speckle patterns were obtained from a holey carbon mesh, used as a test specimen, from a single pulse exposure. The reconstructed image, a complex density object, well reproduced the structural features of the test specimen at a few hundred nm resolution detail. (author)

[en] Intense x-ray pulses from x-ray free electron lasers (XFELs) enable the unveiling of atomic structure in material and biological specimens via ultrafast single-shot exposures. As the radiation is intense enough to destroy the sample, a new sample must be provided for each x-ray pulse. These single-particle delivery schemes require careful optimization, though systematic study to find such optimal conditions is still lacking. We have investigated two major single-particle delivery methods: particle injection as flying objects and membrane-mount as fixed targets. The optimal experimental parameters were searched for via Monte Carlo simulations to discover that the maximum single-particle hit rate achievable is close to 40%

[en] Strongly intertwined interaction among spin, orbital and charge degrees of freedom is the essence to induce emergent materials properties, and the investigation to understand their interplay has been actively pursued. In particular, resonant X-ray scattering technique has demonstrated powerful applications in unveiling their long-range ordering behavior with its enhanced sensitivity to the aforementioned degree of freedom. Here, we further demonstrated the spectroscopic application of the technique by providing experimental evidence to reveal spin polarizations in 4f and 5d orbital of the magnetic Tm ions with the orbital-selectivity, which introduced a route to understand fundamental mechanism of spin polarization in the compound. The enhanced sensitivity of the resonant X-ray scattering to various electric multipole transitions expects to find strong applications in studying various spin and polar ordering in materials to include high-order moments.

[en] Achieving a resolution near 1 nm is a critical issue in coherent x-ray diffraction imaging (CDI) for applications in materials and biology. Albeit with various advantages of CDI based on synchrotrons and newly developed x-ray free electron lasers, its applications would be limited without improving resolution well below 10 nm. Here, we review the issues and efforts in improving CDI resolution including various methods for resolution determination. Enhancing diffraction signal at large diffraction angles, with the aid of interference between neighboring strong scatterers or templates, is reviewed and discussed in terms of increasing signal-to-noise ratio. In addition, we discuss errors in image reconstruction algorithms—caused by the discreteness of the Fourier transformations involved—which degrade the spatial resolution, and suggest ways to correct them. We expect this review to be useful for applications of CDI in imaging weakly scattering soft matters using coherent x-ray sources including x-ray free electron lasers. (topical review)

[en] We have shown that, when the linear oversampling ratio ≥2, exactly oversampled diffraction patterns can be directly obtained from measured data through deconvolution. By using computer simulations and experimental data, we have demonstrated that exact oversampling of diffraction patterns distinctively improves the quality of phase retrieval. Furthermore, phase retrieval based on the exact sampling scheme is independent of the oversampling ratio, which can significantly reduce the radiation dosage to the samples. We believe that the present work will contribute to high-quality image reconstruction of materials science samples and biological structures using x-ray diffraction microscopy

[en] We report the first demonstration of resonant x-ray diffraction microscopy for element specific imaging of buried structures with a pixel resolution of ∼15 nm by exploiting the abrupt change in the scattering cross section near electronic resonances. We performed nondestructive and quantitative imaging of buried Bi structures inside a Si crystal by directly phasing coherent x-ray diffraction patterns acquired below and above the Bi M₅ edge. We anticipate that resonant x-ray diffraction microscopy will be applied to element and chemical state specific imaging of a broad range of systems including magnetic materials, semiconductors, organic materials, biominerals, and biological specimens

[en] The missing data problem, i.e., the intensities at the center of diffraction patterns cannot be experimentally measured, is currently a major limitation for wider applications of coherent diffraction microscopy. We report here that, when the missing data are confined within the centrospeckle, the missing data problem can be reliably solved. With an improved instrument, we recorded 27 oversampled diffraction patterns at various orientations from a GaN quantum dot nanoparticle and performed quantitative image reconstruction from the diffraction intensities alone. This work in principle clears the way for single-shot imaging experiments using x-ray free electron lasers

[en] In combination of direct phase retrieval of coherent x-ray diffraction patterns with a novel tomographic reconstruction algorithm, we, for the first time, carried out quantitative 3D imaging of a heat-treated GaN particle with each voxel corresponding to 17x17x17 nm³. We observed the platelet structure of GaN and the formation of small islands on the surface of the platelets, and successfully captured the internal GaN-Ga₂O₃ core shell structure in three dimensions. This work opens the door for nondestructive and quantitative imaging of 3D morphology and 3D internal structure of a wide range of materials at the nanometer scale resolution that are amorphous or possess only short-range atomic organization

[en] We present the first experimental demonstration of lensless diffractive imaging using coherent soft x rays generated by a tabletop soft-x-ray source. A 29 nm high harmonic beam illuminates an object, and the subsequent diffraction is collected on an x-ray CCD camera. High dynamic range diffraction patterns are obtained by taking multiple exposures while blocking small-angle diffraction using beam blocks of varying size. These patterns reconstruct to images with 214 nm resolution. This work demonstrates a practical tabletop lensless microscope that promises to find applications in materials science, nanoscience, and biology