Single-shot 3D structure determination of nanocrystals with femtosecond X-ray free electron laser pulses

Understand

Coherent diffraction imaging (CDI) using synchrotron radiation, X-ray free electron lasers (X-FELs), high harmonic generation, soft X-ray lasers, and optical lasers has found broad applications across several disciplines.

• An active research direction in CDI is to determine the structure of single particles with intense, femtosecond X-FEL pulses based on diffraction-before-destruction scheme.
• However, single-shot 3D structure determination has not been experimentally realized yet.
• Here we report the first experimental demonstration of single-shot 3D structure determination of individual nanocrystals using ~10 femtosecond X-FEL pulses.