Biomolecular imaging and electronic damage using X-ray free-electron lasers

Abstract

Proposals to determine biomolecular structures from diffraction experiments using femtosecond X-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) pulses involve a conflict between the incident brightness required to achieve diffraction-limited atomic resolution and the electronic and structural damage induced by the illumination. Here we show that previous estimates of the conditions under which biomolecular structures may be obtained in this manner are unduly restrictive, because they are based on a coherent diffraction model that is not appropriate to the proposed interaction conditions. A more detailed imaging model derived from optical coherence theory and quantum electrodynamics is shown to be far more tolerant of electronic damage. The nuclear density is employed as the principal descriptor of molecular structure. The foundations of the approach may also be used to characterize electrodynamical processes by performing scattering experiments on complex molecules of known structure.

16 pages, 2 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Femtosecond Diffractive Imaging with a Soft-X-ray Free-Electron Laser
• The effect of tamper layer on the explosion dynamics of atom clusters

Cited by in corpus (19)

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• Multi-wavelength anomalous diffraction at high x-ray intensity
• Impact of ultrafast electronic damage in single particle x-ray imaging experiments
• Two-Dimensional Stimulated Resonance Raman Spectroscopy of Molecules with Broadband X-ray Pulses
• Atomic and molecular dynamics triggered by ultrashort light pulses on the atto- to picosecond time scale
• Incoherent x-ray scattering in single molecule imaging
• Orientation Determination in Single Particle X-ray Coherent Diffraction Imaging Experiments
• Femtosecond reduction of atomic scattering factors triggered by intense x-ray pulse
• Phase retrieval for Bragg coherent diffraction imaging at high X-ray energies
• Calculation of x-ray scattering patterns from nanocrystals at high x-ray intensity
• Single-Shot Electron Diffraction using a Cold Atom Electron Source
• Fluorescence intensity correlation imaging with high resolution and elemental contrast using intense x-ray pulses
• Theoretical investigation of orbital alignment of x-ray-ionized atoms in exotic electronic configurations
• State-resolved ionization dynamics of neon atom induced by x-ray free-electron-laser pulses
• Relative roles of multiple scattering and Fresnel diffraction in the imaging of small molecules using electrons, Part II: Differential Holographic Tomography
• Comparison of Hartree-Fock and Hartree-Fock-Slater approximations for calculation of radiation damage dynamics of light and heavy atoms in the field of x-ray free electron laser
• Ultraintense, ultrashort pulse x-ray scattering in small molecules
• Application of sampling theory in modeling of continuum processes: photoionization cross-sections of atoms