Final Report: Algorithms for Diffractive Microscopy

Elser, Veit

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

关键词: 77 Nanoscience And Nanotechnology;   

DOI  :  10.2172/1097825
RP-ID  :  DOE-Cornell46198
RP-ID  :  FG02-05ER46198
RP-ID  :  1097825

美国|英语

来源: UNT Digital Library

【 摘 要 】

The phenomenal coherence and brightness of x-ray free-electron laser light sources, such as the LCLS at SLAC, have the potential of revolutionizing the investigation of structure and dynamics in the nano-domain. However, this potential will go unrealized without a similar revolution in the way the data are analyzed. While it is true that the ambitious design parameters of the LCLS have been achieved, the prospects of realizing the most publicized goal of this instrument — the imaging of individual bio-particles — remains daunting. Even with 10{sup 12} photons per x-ray pulse, the feebleness of the scattering process represents a fundamental limit that no amount of engineering ingenuity can overcome. Large bio-molecules will scatter on the order of only 10{sup 3} photons per pulse into a detector with 106 pixels; the diffraction “images” will be virtually indistinguishable from noise. Averaging such noisy signals over many pulses is not possible because the particle orientation cannot be controlled. Each noisy laser snapshot is thus confounded by the unknown viewpoint of the particle. Given the heavy DOE investment in LCLS and the profound technical challenges facing single-particle imaging, the final two years of this project have concentrated on this effort. We are happy to report that we succeeded in developing an extremely efficient algorithm that can reconstruct the shapes of particles at even the extremes of noise expected in future LCLS experiments with single bio-particles. Since this is the most important outcome of this project, the major part of this report documents this accomplishment. The theoretical techniques that were developed for the single-particle imaging project have proved useful in other imaging problems that are described at the end of the report.