Multi-slice ptychography with large numerical aperture multilayer Laue lenses

The highly convergent x-ray beam focused by multilayer Laue lenses with large numerical apertures is used as a threedimensional (3D) probe to image layered structures with an axial separation larger than the depth of focus. Instead of collecting weakly scattered high-spatial-frequency signals, the depth-resolving power is provided purely by the intense central cone diverged from the focused beam. Using the multi-slice ptychography method combined with the on-the-fly scan scheme, two layers of nanoparticles separated by 10 mu m are successfully reconstructed with 8.1 nm lateral resolution and with a dwell time as low as 0.05 s per scan point. This approach obtains high-resolution images with extended depth of field, which paves the way for multi-slice ptychography as a high throughput technique for high-resolution 3D imaging of thick samples. (c) 2018 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement