Supersampled scanning transmission X-ray microscopy for high-resolution vibration-free imaging

TL;DR

This paper introduces supersampled scanning transmission X-ray microscopy, a method that reduces imaging overhead and mitigates vibrational noise, enabling higher resolution and more efficient nanoscale imaging.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel supersampled scanning technique that improves high-resolution STXM imaging by reducing overhead and removing vibrational noise effects.

Findings

Significant reduction in overhead times during imaging

Effective removal of vibrational noise effects

Successful proof-of-concept high-resolution imaging experiments

Abstract

Scanning transmission X-ray microscopy (STXM) is a nanoscale imaging technique that can utilize several powerful contrast mechanisms for the quantitative mapping of chemical and physical materials properties. Spatial resolutions down to 7~nm at the soft X-ray energy range have been demonstrated. A limiting factor for high-resolution STXM imaging is given by the positioning precision of the sample with respect to the focusing optic, with the current state-of-the-art leading to significant overheads, especially at low pixel dwell times, and being vulnerable to unavoidable external vibrations sources. In this work, we present a method, called supersampled scanning microscopy, that allows for a significant reduction of overhead times while simultaneously removing the effects of vibrational noise by sampling the position of the sample at a rate significantly higher than the vibration spectrum and reconstructing the sample transmission image from the recorded list of positions and detector counts. We demonstrate the performance of the technique with a set of proof-of-concept high-resolution imaging experiments.