Coherent x-ray imaging of defects in colloidal crystals

Coherent x-ray diffractive imaging (CXDI) was applied to reveal the structure of colloidal crystals. The colloidal sample was illuminated by a coherent x-ray beam through a 7 mu m pinhole aperture. The resulting diffraction patterns contain several Bragg peaks and an additional interference structure between the peaks due to the coherent illumination of a finite part of the sample. The inversion of these diffraction patterns reveals the arrangement of colloidal particles in a face-centered cubic (fcc) lattice as well as defects in the form of stacking faults in the (111) planes.