Tomographic femtosecond X-ray diffractive imaging

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel method for femtosecond X-ray diffraction that captures three projections from a single pulse, enabling 3D imaging without phase retrieval, applicable to time-resolved experiments.

Contribution

It presents a new approach for obtaining multiple projections and orientation information from a single femtosecond X-ray pulse, bypassing phase problem solutions.

Findings

Allows three simultaneous projections from one pulse

Determines relative orientation of targets

Applicable to time-resolved tomographic imaging

Abstract

A method is proposed for obtaining three simultaneous projections of a target from a single radiation pulse, which also allows the relative orientation of successive targets to be determined. The method has application to femtosecond X-ray diffraction, and does not require solution of the phase problem. We show that the principle axes of a compact charge-density distribution can be obtained from projections of its autocorrelation function, which is directly accessible in diffraction experiments. The results may have more general application to time resolved tomographic pump-probe experiments and time-series imaging.