Hard X-ray grazing incidence ptychography: Large field-of-view nanostructure imaging with ultra-high surface sensitivity

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel hard X-ray grazing incidence ptychography technique that enables large-area, high-resolution, surface-sensitive imaging of nanostructures, suitable for in situ materials science studies.

Contribution

It combines imaging, reflectometry, and scattering to achieve large field-of-view nanostructure imaging with high surface sensitivity and resolution comparable to electron microscopy.

Findings

Achieves high-resolution imaging over large areas

Provides surface-sensitive nanostructure characterization

Enables in situ experiments with statistically significant data

Abstract

We demonstrate a technique that allows highly surface sensitive imaging of nanostructures on planar surfaces over large areas, providing a new avenue for research in materials science, especially for \textit{in situ} applications. The capabilities of hard X-ray grazing incidence ptychography combine aspects from imaging, reflectometry and grazing incidence small angle scattering in providing large field-of-view images with high resolution transverse to the beam, horizontally and along the surface normal. Thus, it yields data with resolutions approaching electron microscopy, in two dimensions, but over much larger areas and with a poorer resolution in the third spatial dimension, along the beam propagation direction. Similar to grazing incidence small angle X-ray scattering, this technique facilitates the characterization of nanostructures across statistically significant surface areas or volumes within potentially feasible time frames for \textit{in situ} experiments, while also providing spatial information.