# Fast reconstruction of single-shot wide-angle diffraction images through deep learning

## TL;DR

This paper introduces a deep learning approach for rapid and accurate reconstruction of nanoparticle structures from single-shot wide-angle diffraction images, enabling real-time analysis in high-throughput nanocrystallography.

## Contribution

The authors develop a deep learning method trained on simulated data that significantly accelerates the reconstruction of nanoparticle shapes and orientations from experimental diffraction images.

## Key findings

- Deep learning achieves fast reconstruction times.
- High accuracy in shape and orientation determination.
- Potential for real-time nanostructure analysis.

## Abstract

Single-shot X-ray imaging of short-lived nanostructures such as clusters and nanoparticles near a phase transition or non-crystalizing objects such as large proteins and viruses is currently the most elegant method for characterizing their structure. Using hard X-ray radiation provides scattering images that encode two-dimensional projections, which can be combined to identify the full three-dimensional object structure from multiple identical samples. Wide-angle scattering using XUV or soft X-rays, despite yielding lower resolution, provides three-dimensional structural information in a single shot and has opened routes towards the characterization of non-reproducible objects in the gas phase. The retrieval of the structural information contained in wide-angle scattering images is highly non-trivial, and currently no efficient rigorous algorithm is known. Here we show that deep learning networks, trained with simulated scattering data, allow for fast and accurate reconstruction of shape and orientation of nanoparticles from experimental images. The gain in speed compared to conventional retrieval techniques opens the route for automated structure reconstruction algorithms capable of real-time discrimination and pre-identification of nanostructures in scattering experiments with high repetition rate -- thus representing the enabling technology for fast femtosecond nanocrystallography.