Abstract
Single particle imaging (SPI) is one of the front-page opportunities which were used to motivate the construction of the first x-ray free electron lasers (XFELs). SPI’s big advantage is that it avoids radiation damage to biological samples because the diffraction takes place in femtosecond single shots before any atomic motion can take place in the sample, hence before the onset of radiation damage. This is the ‘diffract before destruction’ theme, destruction being assured from the high x-ray doses used. This article reports our collaboration’s first attempt at SPI using the SACLA XFEL facility in June 2015. The report is limited to experience with the instrumentation and examples of data because we have not yet had time to invert them to images.
Highlights
There are two proposed methods of presenting samples to the x-ray free electron laser (XFEL) beam for single particle imaging (SPI): particle injection and membrane-scanned samples
Virus structure was an early promise of SPI because the high symmetry of some viruses could be used to obtain multiple views of a sample and achieve single-shot 3D imaging
Significant internal structure [1, 2]. Another important direction is ‘Live cell imaging’ with single XFEL shots applied to previously living cells in a thin liquid environment
Summary
There are two proposed methods of presenting samples to the x-ray free electron laser (XFEL) beam for single particle imaging (SPI): particle injection and membrane-scanned samples. Virus structure was an early promise of SPI because the high symmetry of some viruses could be used to obtain multiple views of a sample and achieve single-shot 3D imaging. This is the same idea as ‘non-crystallographic symmetry’. Impressive 3D images of a mimi-virus, obtained by the Hajdu group, show significant internal structure [1, 2]. Another important direction is ‘Live cell imaging’ with single XFEL shots applied to previously living cells in a thin liquid environment. Cyanobacteria had been previously imaged in a sandwich-type cell by synchrotron-based CDI [5] the feasibility of achieving the apparent 50 nm resolution in wet cells with non-XFEL beams has been questioned [6]
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