Solution of the phase problem for coherent scattering from a disordered system of identical particles

R. P. Kurta, R. Dronyak, M. Altarelli, E. Weckert, I. A. Vartanyants

Published 2012-10-12Version 1

While the implementation of single particle coherent diffraction imaging for non-crystalline particles is complicated by current limitations in photon flux, hit rate, and sample delivery a concept of many-particle coherent diffraction imaging offers an alternative way to overcome these difficulties. Here we present a direct, non-iterative approach for the recovery of the diffraction pattern corresponding to a single particle using coherent x-ray data collected from a two-dimensional (2D) disordered system of identical particles, that does not require a priori information about the particles and can be applied to a general case of particles without symmetry. The reconstructed single particle diffraction pattern can be directly used in common iterative phase retrieval algorithms to recover the structure of the particle.