Fast Simulation of Wide-Angle Coherent Diffractive Imaging

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new fast and accurate simulation method, pMSFT, for wide-angle coherent diffractive imaging, improving the efficiency of reconstructing nano-scale objects from diffraction data.

Contribution

The paper presents the propagation multi-slice Fourier transform (pMSFT), a novel simulation technique that outperforms existing methods in speed and accuracy for wide-angle scattering in CDI.

Findings

pMSFT demonstrates superior performance over existing methods.

The method provides accurate simulations essential for single-shot CDI.

A systematic benchmark guides method selection for wide-angle scattering.

Abstract

Single-shot coherent diffractive imaging (CDI) using intense XUV and soft X-ray pulses holds the promise to deliver information on the three dimensional shape as well as the optical properties of nano-scale objects in a single diffraction image. This advantage over conventional X-ray diffraction methods comes at the cost of a much more complex description of the underlying scattering process due to the importance of wide-angle scattering and propagation effects. The commonly employed reconstruction of the sample properties via iterative forward fitting of diffraction patterns requires an accurate and fast method to simulate the scattering process. This work introduces the propagation multi-slice Fourier transform method (pMSFT) and demonstrates its superior performance and accuracy against existing methods for wide-angle scattering. A derivation from first principles, a unified physical picture of the approximations underlying pMSFT and the existing methods, as well as a systematic benchmark that provides qualified guidance for the selection of the appropriate scattering method is presented.