Nanofocused x-ray photon correlation spectroscopy

Abstract

Here, we demonstrate an experimental proof of concept for nanofocused x-ray photon correlation spectroscopy, a technique sensitive to nanoscale fluctuations present in a broad range of systems. The experiment, performed at the NanoMAX beamline at MAX IV, uses a novel event-based x-ray detector to capture nanoparticle structural dynamics with microsecond resolution. By varying the nanobeam size from σ=88 nm to σ=2.5μm, we quantify the effect of the nanofocus on the small-angle scattering lineshape and on the diffusion coefficients obtained from nano-XPCS. We observe that the use of nanobeams leads to a multifold increase in speckle contrast, which greatly improves the experimental signal-to-noise ratio, quantified from the two-time intensity correlation functions. We conclude that it is possible to account for influence of the high beam divergence on the lineshape and measured dynamics by including a convolution with the nanobeam profile in the model.Received 17 December 2021Revised 19 May 2022Accepted 16 June 2022DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.4.L032012Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.Published by the American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Physical SystemsNanoparticlesSynchrotron radiation & free-electron lasersTechniquesCoherent X-ray scatteringX-ray photon correlation spectroscopyCondensed Matter, Materials & Applied PhysicsPolymers & Soft Matter