In situ coherent diffractive imaging

Coherent diffractive imaging (CDI) has been widely applied in the physical and biological sciences using synchrotron radiation, X-ray free-electron laser, high harmonic generation, electrons, and optical lasers. One of CDI’s important applications is to probe dynamic phenomena with high spatiotemporal resolution. Here, we report the development of a general in situ CDI method for real-time imaging of dynamic processes in solution. By introducing a time-invariant overlapping region as real-space constraint, we simultaneously reconstructed a time series of complex exit wave of dynamic processes with robust and fast convergence. We validated this method using optical laser experiments and numerical simulations with coherent X-rays. Our numerical simulations further indicated that in situ CDI can potentially reduce radiation dose by more than an order of magnitude relative to conventional CDI. With further development, we envision in situ CDI could be applied to probe a range of dynamic phenomena in the future.Coherent diffractive imaging (CDI) allows for high resolution imaging without lenses. Here, Lo et al. develop in situ CDI with real-time imaging and a corresponding low-dose requirement, with expected applications in the physical and life sciences.