Nanometer-resolution hard X-ray near-field ptychography with multilayer Laue lenses

¹ Center for Free-Electron Laser Science CFEL, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, 22607 Hamburg, Germany
² The Hamburg Center for Ultrafast Imaging, 22761 Hamburg, Germany
³ Department of Physics, Universität Hamburg, 22761 Hamburg, Germany

^* e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Published online: 22 September 2025

Abstract

In coherent X-ray diffraction imaging, resolution is limited by the scattering power of the sample, where high-angle signals are weak and compete with background and noise. In this work, we analyzed and experimentally demonstrated that hard X-ray projection imaging with high numerical aperture multilayer Laue lenses achieves improved resolution by adding a strong reference wave to boost the signal against background and noise. Combined with transversely scanning the sample, robust phase retrieval reconstruction is carried out through the modality of near-field ptychography. We demonstrated this at a photon energy of 17.4 keV, using lenses of 0.014 NA, by achieving images of a Siemens star test object and a hierarchical nanoporous gold sample at a spatial resolution below 10 nm.