Scientists have for the first time used an extremely short and intense coherent soft x-ray laser pulse to successfully obtain a high-resolution image of a nano-scale object before the sample was destroyed by the energy impact of the pulse. The experiment, conducted at Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg by a collaboration that included researchers from the Photon Science Directorate at SLAC, also set a speed record of 25 femtoseconds for the duration of the x-ray pulse used to acquire the image. The results are published in the November 12 online edition and the December printed edition of Nature Physics.

Using the soft x-ray free-electron laser FLASH at DESY at a 32 nm wavelength, the international collaboration led by Janos Hajdu (SLAC and Uppsala University) and Henry Chapman (LLNL) exposed a sample that contained nanometer-sized objects and recorded the x-ray diffraction pattern using a novel fast detector. A special computer algorithm was then used to recreate an image of the object based on the recorded diffraction pattern.

The technique used to capture the image is called "flash diffraction imaging," and this experiment proves the principle behind atomic-scale imaging that will be applied when even more powerful x-ray free-electron lasers are available, such as the LCLS, now under construction at SLAC; the SPring-8 SCSS facility in Japan; and the European XFEL in Hamburg. According to researchers, these revolutionary FELs will give scientists unprecedented insight into structural dynamics of a variety of materials.

The work was funded in part by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, by a Laboratory Directed Research and Development strategic initiative proposal for "biological imaging with fourth-generation light sources" at LLNL, and by Swedish Research Councils.

To learn more about this research see the full scientific highlight at:
http://www-ssrl.slac.stanford.edu/research/highlights_archive/flash.html

H. N. Chapman, A. Barty, M. J. Bogan, S. Boutel, M. Frank, S. P. Hau-Reige, S. Marchesini, B. W. Woods, S. Bajt, W. Henry. Benner, R. A. London, E. Plönjes, M. Kuhlmann, R. Treusch, S. Düsterer, T. Tschentscher, J. R. Schneider, E. Spiller, T. Möller, C. Bostedt, M. Hoener, D. A. Shapiro, K. O. Hodgson, D. van der Spoel, F. Burmeister, M. Bergh, C. Caleman, G. Huldt, M. Seibert, F. R. N. C. Maia, R. W. Lee, A. Szöke, N. Timneanu and J. Hajdu, "Femtosecond Diffractive Imaging with a Soft-X-ray Free-Electron Laser", Nat. Phys. Published online: 12 November 2006 | doi:10.1038/nphys461