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Diffractive imaging of highly focused X-ray fields

Nature Physics volume 2, pages 101–104 (2006)Cite this article

Abstract

The rapid development of new sources of coherent X-rays, such as third-generation synchrotrons, high-harmonic-generation lasers1 and X-ray free-electron lasers2, has led to the emergence of the new field of X-ray coherent science. The extension of coherent methods to the X-ray regime makes possible methods such as coherent diffraction, X-ray photon-correlation spectroscopy, speckle interferometry and ultrafast probing at atomic resolution and femtosecond timescales. Despite rapid improvements in the resolution that conventional X-ray optics can achieve, new methods for manipulating X-rays are required to push this to the atomic scale3. Here we demonstrate a coherent imaging technique that enables us to image the complex field at the focus of an X-ray zone plate without the need for conventional X-ray lenses. There are no fundamental limits on the resolution of this lensless imaging technique other than the wavelength of the X-rays themselves. The ability to characterize the beam with one measurement makes the method ideally suited to characterizing the fields generated by pulsed coherent X-ray sources.

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Figure 1: Schematic of the experimental arrangement.
Figure 2: Plots of the field reconstructed around the focal point of each of the zone plates.
Figure 3: Logarithmic plot of the intensity of the reconstructed wavefield along one axis of the focal plane for the 2-ID-B data.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge C. Tran, B. Dhal and B. Lai for discussions and assistance in acquiring the experimental data. We also acknowledge support from the Australian Synchrotron Research Program and the Australian Research Council (ARC) under the Centre of Excellence, QEII and Federation Fellowship programs. The use of the Advanced Photon Source was supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under Contract No. W-31-109-ENG-38.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Physics, The University of Melbourne, Victoria, 3010, Australia

    H. M. Quiney & K. A. Nugent

  2. Department of Physics, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria, 3086, Australia

    A. G. Peele

  3. Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois, 60439, USA

    Z. Cai & D. Paterson

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  1. H. M. Quiney
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  2. A. G. Peele
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Correspondence to K. A. Nugent.

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Quiney, H., Peele, A., Cai, Z. et al. Diffractive imaging of highly focused X-ray fields. Nature Phys 2, 101–104 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys218

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