Solution of the phase problem for coherent scattering from a disordered system of identical particles

TL;DR

This paper introduces a direct, non-iterative method to recover single-particle diffraction patterns from disordered systems, overcoming limitations of current single-particle imaging techniques without needing prior particle information.

Contribution

It presents a novel approach for phase retrieval in coherent diffraction imaging that works on disordered systems of identical particles without symmetry or prior knowledge.

Findings

Enables direct recovery of single-particle diffraction patterns from disordered systems.

Does not require a priori information about particle shape or symmetry.

Can be integrated with existing phase retrieval algorithms for structure determination.

Abstract

While the implementation of single particle coherent diffraction imaging for non-crystalline particles is complicated by current limitations in photon flux, hit rate, and sample delivery a concept of many-particle coherent diffraction imaging offers an alternative way to overcome these difficulties. Here we present a direct, non-iterative approach for the recovery of the diffraction pattern corresponding to a single particle using coherent x-ray data collected from a two-dimensional (2D) disordered system of identical particles, that does not require a priori information about the particles and can be applied to a general case of particles without symmetry. The reconstructed single particle diffraction pattern can be directly used in common iterative phase retrieval algorithms to recover the structure of the particle.