Over past 3.5 years we have had 8 runs on 2 different beamlines at the Advanced Light Source (Berkeley Lab, Berekely, CA, USA) to learn ptychography and use examples in biological magnetism, fuel cell materials and aerogels to demonstrate the large improvements in spatial resolution (30 nm to 5 nm) that can be achieved using ptychography instead of conventional scanning transmission X-ray microscopy. As most of our systems are radiation sensitive we are also advancing methods to get valid ptychographic results with minimal X-ray dose. # publications and 1 thesis to date.
Impact
Our published (PNAS) experimental results have the current world record spatial resolution for X-ray imaging below 1 keV. A new, dedicated ptychography beamline is under commissioning at ALS, which will further improve capabilities. We are using our experience at ALS, to help implement ptychography at the Canadian Light Source (Saskatoon).
Student Experience
3 PhD students have participated in ptychography experiments. Dr. Xiaohui Zhu defended his PhD on biological magnetism in Oct 2016. He is currently a postdoc in my group, and , as of July 2017, has an offer of a position as a staff scientist at the Shanghai synchrotron facility.
