X-ray microscopy and ever brighter beams: opportunities and challenges.
We are entering an exciting new era in x-ray science, with advances in x-ray free electron lasers and diffraction-limited storage rings providing fully coherent beams. Compared to electron microscopy, x-ray microscopy allows one to better understand the complexity of materials, in terms of their composition (using spectroscopy) and their organization (using tomography). While we have developed diffractive optics with a theoretical resolution of better than 20 nm and an efficiency that could reach as high as 30% at multi-keV x-ray energies, we have also developed coherent imaging methods that are letting us see sub-20 nm resolution detail within frozen hydrated cells and within un-thinned integrated circuits. At longer length scales, we are obtaining micrometer resolution tomography data of whole mouse brains so as to understand mesoscale neuroanatomy. Where might this lead? Future possibilities will be discussed, along with the challenges that must be faced in cryogenic imaging, instrumentation, and computing.
Requests made by e-mail will be confirmed.
If you do not receive a confirmation e-mail, please contact us by phone.