How to use XFEL to determine the structure of a single molecule

One of the hottest topics in X-ray crystallography in the early 21^st century is coherent X-ray diffraction imaging and its application to the determination of atomic structures of non-crystalline materials - the ultimate goal can be a single molecule. The technique appears to require non-ordinary coherent photon sources, such as X-ray free-electron lasers (XFEL), which are now in operation at Stanford. On the other hand, there are several challenging questions basically concerning sample damage, Coulomb explosion, and the role of nonlinearity. Recently, Dr. A. Fratalocchi and his colleague published their calculations showing that XFEL-based single-molecule imaging will only be possible with a few-hundred long attosecond pulses, due to significant radiation damage and the formation of preferred multisoliton clusters which reshape the overall electronic density of the molecular system at the femtosecond scale. For more information, see the papers, "Single-Molecule Imaging with X-Ray Free-Electron Lasers: Dream or Reality?", A. Fratalocchi et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 105504 (2011).