Visualizing aerosol-particle injection for diffractive-imaging experiments

TL;DR

This paper introduces non-invasive, real-time visualization diagnostics for aerosol particle injection in x-ray free-electron laser experiments, improving efficiency and alignment without interfering with the experiment.

Contribution

Development of in-situ, non-destructive laser-based imaging diagnostics for real-time optimization and alignment of aerosol particle injectors in diffractive-imaging experiments.

Findings

Diagnostics successfully demonstrated during diffraction measurements at FLASH.

Real-time feedback improves injector performance and alignment.

Reduces sample consumption and measurement time.

Abstract

Delivering sub-micrometer particles to an intense x-ray focus is a crucial aspect of single-particle diffractive-imaging experiments at x-ray free-electron lasers. Enabling direct visualization of sub-micrometer aerosol particle streams without interfering with the operation of the particle injector can greatly improve the overall efficiency of single-particle imaging experiments by reducing the amount of time and sample consumed during measurements. We have developed in-situ non-destructive imaging diagnostics to aid real-time particle injector optimization and x-ray/particle-beam alignment, based on laser illumination schemes and fast imaging detectors. Our diagnostics are constructed to provide a non-invasive rapid feedback on injector performance during measurements, and have been demonstrated during diffraction measurements at the FLASH free-electron laser.