Pulse-to-pulse wavefront sensing at free-electron lasers using ptychography

Simone Sala; Benedikt J Daurer; Michal Odstrcil; Flavio Capotondi; Emanuele Pedersoli; Max F Hantke; Michele Manfredda; N Duane Loh; Pierre Thibault; Filipe R N C Maia

doi:10.1107/S1600576720006913

Pulse-to-pulse wavefront sensing at free-electron lasers using ptychography

J Appl Crystallogr. 2020 Jul 8;53(Pt 4):949-956. doi: 10.1107/S1600576720006913. eCollection 2020 Aug 1.

Authors

Simone Sala^{1

2}, Benedikt J Daurer^{3

4}, Michal Odstrcil⁵, Flavio Capotondi⁶, Emanuele Pedersoli⁶, Max F Hantke⁷, Michele Manfredda⁶, N Duane Loh^{4

8}, Pierre Thibault², Filipe R N C Maia³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, London, UK.
² Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK.
³ Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
⁴ Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
⁵ Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen, Switzerland.
⁶ Elettra-Sincrotrone Trieste, Trieste, Italy.
⁷ Department of Chemistry, Oxford University, Oxford, UK.
⁸ Department of Physics, National University of Singapore, Singapore.

Abstract

The pressing need for knowledge of the detailed wavefront properties of ultra-bright and ultra-short pulses produced by free-electron lasers has spurred the development of several complementary characterization approaches. Here a method based on ptychography is presented that can retrieve high-resolution complex-valued wavefunctions of individual pulses without strong constraints on the illumination or sample object used. The technique is demonstrated within experimental conditions suited for diffraction experiments and exploiting Kirkpatrick-Baez focusing optics. This lensless technique, applicable to many other short-pulse instruments, can achieve diffraction-limited resolution.

Keywords: X-ray free-electron lasers; XFELs; ptychography; ultra-short pulses; wavefronts.

Grants and funding

This work was funded by Vetenskapsrådet grant . Knut och Alice Wallenbergs Stiftelse grant . Stiftelsen för Strategisk Forskning grant . Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education grant . Diamond Light Source grant . Seventh Framework Programme grants 279753 and 312284.