In situ coherent diffractive imaging

TL;DR

This paper introduces an in situ coherent diffractive imaging method enabling real-time, robust imaging of dynamic processes in solutions, with potential applications across physics, chemistry, and biology, and reduced radiation dose.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel in situ CDI technique that uses a real-space constraint for fast, robust reconstruction of dynamic processes in solutions, validated by simulations and experiments.

Findings

Enables real-time imaging of dynamic processes in solutions.

Potentially reduces radiation dose by over an order of magnitude.

Applicable to diverse fields like electrochemistry and biological imaging.

Abstract

Coherent diffractive imaging (CDI) has been widely applied in the physical and biological sciences using synchrotron radiation, XFELs, high harmonic generation, electrons and optical lasers. One of CDI's important applications is to probe dynamic phenomena with high spatio-temporal 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 a real-space constraint, we show that in situ CDI can simultaneously reconstruct a time series of the complex exit wave of dynamic processes with robust and fast convergence. We validate this method using numerical simulations with coherent X-rays and performing experiments on a materials science and a biological specimen in solution with an optical laser. Our numerical simulations further indicate that in situ CDI can potentially reduce the radiation dose by more than an order of magnitude relative to conventional CDI. As coherent X-rays are under rapid development worldwide, we expect in situ CDI could be applied to probe dynamic phenomena ranging from electrochemistry, structural phase transitions, charge transfer, transport, crystal nucleation, melting and fluid dynamics to biological imaging.