Full optical characterization of coherent x-ray nanobeams by ptychographic imaging

Scanning coherent diffraction microscopy (ptychography) is an emerging hard x-ray microscopy technique that yields spatial resolutions well below the lateral size of the probing nanobeam. Besides a high resolution image of the object, the complex wave field of the probe can be reconstructed at the position of the object. By verifying the consistency of several independent wave field measurements along the optical axis, we address the question of how well the reconstruction represents the nanobeam. With a single ptychogram the wave field can be properly determined over a large range along the optical axis, also at positions inaccessible otherwise. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America