By IANS,
Washington : Researchers in the US are working on a new technique to create detailed high-resolution images that will show the atomic structure of cellular molecules.
A research team at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab is collaborating with scientists in Germany and Sweden to utilise high-energy X-ray beams, combined with complex algorithms, to overcome limitations in current technology.
Using high-energy, extremely short-pulse – less than 100 femtoseconds, or one quadrillionth of a second – X-ray beams to examine nanoscale objects is not a new concept. The difficulty lies with the algorithms to convert the resulting patterns into usable images.
The work began more than five years ago as a Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project, headed by Stefano Marchesini. He has since been transferred to Lawrence Berkeley Lab (LBNL), leaving the project in the hands of Stefan Hau-Riege, a materials science physicist at LLNL, reports Eurekalert.
For now, the Advanced Light Source at LBNL and the FLASH facility in Hamburg, Germany, are being used to provide the X-ray beams. But a new facility under construction at Stanford University, the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), will provide additional capabilities and greater imaging accuracy when it comes on line next year.
“The resolution we achieved is among the best ever reported for holography of a micrometer-sized object, and we believe that it will improve in the future with the development of nano-arrays for Fourier Transform Holography at LCLS,” according to Hau-Riege.
Another light source being built in Hamburg will be used as well. When completed in late 2013, the X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL) will be the world’s longest artificial light source.
Details of the study appeared in the Aug 1 edition of Nature Photonics.