Coherent X-Ray Diffraction Imaging of Morphology and Strain in Nanomaterials

Abstract

The last decade has seen a remarkable surge in x-ray characterization methods (Willmott, An Introduction to Synchrotron Radiation, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 2011). Imaging with x-rays has evolved from simple radiography, to image internal structure and diagnose injury, to a full-fledged tool for nanoscale characterization (Holt et al., Annu Rev Mater Res 43:1, 2013). Central to this development has been the advent of high-brilliance synchrotron and free electron laser sources of x-rays. The high degree of spacial coherence of the resulting beams has enabled novel imaging methods. Of these, coherent diffraction imaging has proven highly successful at imaging the structure in nano materials (Miao et al., Nature 400:342, 1999). In addition, this imaging method can be combined with Bragg diffraction to image strain with high sensitivity (Pfeifer et al., Nature 442:63, 2006; Robinson and Harder, Nat Mater 8:291, 2009).