# Incoherent Diffractive Imaging via Intensity Correlations of hard X-rays

## TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that intensity correlations of incoherent x-ray scattering can be used to achieve high-resolution 3D imaging of atomic structures, surpassing traditional coherent diffraction methods.

## Contribution

It introduces a novel imaging technique leveraging incoherent scattering intensity correlations for 3D atomic structure determination.

## Key findings

- Incoherent scattering correlations enable 3D imaging.
- Higher resolution than conventional methods.
- Provides additional 3D Fourier space information.

## Abstract

Established x-ray diffraction methods allow for high-resolution structure determination of crystals, crystallized protein structures or even single molecules. While these techniques rely on coherent scattering, incoherent processes like Compton scattering or fluorescence emission -- often the predominant scattering mechanisms -- are generally considered detrimental for imaging applications. Here we show that intensity correlations of incoherently scattered x-ray radiation can be used to image the full 3D structure of the scattering atoms with significantly higher resolution compared to conventional coherent diffraction imaging and crystallography, including additional three-dimensional information in Fourier space for a single sample orientation. We present a number of properties of incoherent diffractive imaging that are conceptually superior to those of coherent methods.