High-resolution diffraction microscopy using the plane-wave field of a nearly diffraction limited focused x-ray beam

X-ray waves in the center of the beam waist of nearly diffraction limited focused x-ray beams can be considered to have amplitude and phase that are both almost uniform, i.e., they are x-ray plane waves. Here we report the results of an experimental demonstration of high-resolution diffraction microscopy using the x-ray plane wave of the synchrotron x-ray beam focused using Kirkpatrik-Baez mirrors. A silver nanocube with an edge length of ∼100 nm is illuminated with the x-ray beam focused to a ∼1μm spot at 12 keV. A high-contrast symmetric diffraction pattern of the nanocube is observed in the forward far field. An image of the nanocube is successfully reconstructed by an iterative phasing method and its half-period resolution is 3.0 nm. This method does not only dramatically improve the spatial resolution of x-ray microscopy but also is a key technology for realizing single-pulse diffractive imaging using x-ray free-electron lasers.