We report the first demonstration of resonant x-ray diffraction microscopy for element specific imaging of buried structures with a pixel resolution of approximately 15 nm by exploiting the abrupt change in the scattering cross section near electronic resonances. We performed nondestructive and quantitative imaging of buried Bi structures inside a Si crystal by directly phasing coherent x-ray d...

The Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT) is a Chinese space telescope mission. It is scheduled for launch in 2015. The telescope will perform an all-sky survey in hard X-ray band (1 250 keV), a series of deep imaging observations of small sky regions as well as pointed observations. In this work we present a conceptual method to reconstruct light curves from HXMT imaging observation directly,...

New diffractive imaging techniques using coherent x-ray beams have made possible nanometer-scale resolution imaging by replacing the optics in a microscope with an iterative phase retrieval algorithm. However, to date very high resolution imaging (< 40 nm) was limited to large-scale synchrotron facilities. Here, we present a significant advance in image resolution and capabilities for desktop s...

Scanning transmission X-ray microscopy (STXM) is a powerful imaging technique, in which a small X-ray probe is raster scanned across a specimen. Complete knowledge of the complex-valued transmission function of the specimen can be gained using detection schemes whose every-day use, however, is often hindered by the need of specialized configured detectors or by slow or noisy readout of area det...

Ray-based reflection tomography has become widely used as a tool for updating velocity models in depth imaging. Historically, development of ray-based tomography for depth imaging followed two separate methodologies. Early ray-based tomography was based on differences in traveltime observed between modeled data and actual seismic data (Bishop et al, 1983). As technology for imaging in complex a...

We propose a quantitative x-ray phase imaging technique using previously demonstrated XOR objectives. The fabrication process of XOR is identical to that of a Fresnel zone-plate and as a result the same finest outermost zone width, thus spatial resolution, can be achieved. A series of phase shifts from 0 to 2p is implemented by shifting the relative position of the grating with respect to the z...

The scattering of visible light in optically dense sprays compromises the ability of common spray imaging techniques to capture the quantitative liquid mass distribution. Because of reduced susceptibility to multiple scattering, X-ray radiography can overcome the difficulties associated with optical wavelengths and provide quantitative measurements of liquid mass distribution in a variety of sp...

A sheet consisting of an array of small, aligned Dove prisms can locally (on the scale of the width of the prisms) invert one component of the ray direction. A sandwich of two such Dove-prism sheets that inverts both transverse components of the ray direction is a ray-optical approximation to the interface between two media with refractive indices +n and −n. We demonstrate the simulated imaging...

We present a quantitative x-ray phase imaging method that can be readily implemented on existing x-ray microscopy facilities. This technique utilizes Fresnel zone plates both as imaging optical elements for magnification and as second-order grating structures for phase-shifting interferometry. By making high-resolution quantitative x-ray phase information widely available, we expect this work t...