Impact of ultrafast electronic damage in single particle x-ray imaging experiments

Abstract

In single particle coherent x-ray diffraction imaging experiments, performed at x-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs), samples are exposed to intense x-ray pulses to obtain single-shot diffraction patterns. The high intensity induces electronic dynamics on the femtosecond time scale in the system, which can reduce the contrast of the obtained diffraction patterns and adds an isotropic background. We quantify the degradation of the diffraction pattern from ultrafast electronic damage by performing simulations on a biological sample exposed to x-ray pulses with different parameters. We find that the contrast is substantially reduced and the background is considerably strong only if almost all electrons are removed from their parent atoms. This happens at fluences of at least one order of magnitude larger than provided at currently available XFEL sources.

arXiv comment15 pages, 3 figures submitted to PRL

References in corpus (5)

• An assessment of the resolution limitation due to radiation-damage in x-ray diffraction microscopy
• A reconstruction algorithm for single-particle diffraction imaging experiments
• Impact of hollow-atom formation on coherent x-ray scattering at high intensity
• Analysis of Coherence Properties of 3-rd Generation Synchrotron Sources and Free-Electron Lasers
• Biomolecular imaging and electronic damage using X-ray free-electron lasers

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