Mitigation and quantification of high-frequency instabilities using progressive filtering in burst-mode ptychography

Area of Science:

• X-ray imaging
• Microscopy
• Materials science

Background:

• Ptychography is a lensless imaging technique reconstructing high-resolution images from diffraction patterns.
• It is sensitive to system instabilities, particularly high-frequency ones, which are challenging to mitigate.
• Existing methods struggle with high-frequency instabilities affecting image quality.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce progressive filtering (PF) ptychography, a new method to address high-frequency instabilities.
• To leverage burst-mode detector capabilities for improved ptychography performance.
• To enhance the spatial resolution achievable with ptychography.

Main Methods:

• Utilized burst-mode detector capabilities for temporally oversampled data acquisition.
• Implemented a progressive filtering (PF) algorithm during image reconstruction.
• Applied the PF ptychography method to a standard Siemens star sample.

Main Results:

• Achieved a significant improvement in spatial resolution, from 30.2 nm to 9.5 nm.
• Successfully characterized high-frequency instabilities, identifying a 33 nm length scale.
• Determined characteristic instability frequencies of 29 Hz and 38 Hz.

Conclusions:

• Progressive filtering (PF) ptychography effectively mitigates high-frequency instabilities.
• The method offers a substantial enhancement in spatial resolution for ptychography.
• Characterization of instabilities provides insights for future system design and stability improvements.