Partial coherence effects on the imaging of small crystals using coherent x-ray diffraction

Recent achievements in experimental and computational methods have opened up the possibility of measuring and inverting the diffraction pattern from a single-crystalline particle on the nanometre scale. In this paper, a theoretical approach to the scattering of purely coherent and partially coherent x-ray radiation by such particles is discussed in detail. Test calculations based on the iterative algorithms proposed initially by Gerchberg and Saxton and generalized by Fienup are applied to reconstruct the shape of the scattering crystals. It is demonstrated that partially coherent radiation produces a small area of high intensity in the reconstructed image of the particle.