Extension of coherent X-ray diffractive imaging

The research team led by Professors V. Holý (Charles University, Czech Republic) and T. Baumbach (ANKA-Institute for Synchrotron radiation, Germany) have recently performed some extension of coherent X-ray diffractive imaging for high-resolution strain analysis in crystalline nanostructured devices such as layered nanowires and/or dots. Their research successfully determined the strain distribution in (Ga,Mn)As/GaAs nanowires. The key was their improvement of the phase-retrieval algorithm, i.e., separation of diffraction signals in reciprocal spaces. It was found that individual parts of the device can be reconstructed independently by this inversion procedure. The method is effective even for strongly inhomogeneously strained objects. For more information, see the paper, "Selective coherent x-ray diffractive imaging of displacement fields in (Ga,Mn)As/GaAs periodic wires", A. A. Minkevich et al., Phys. Rev. B84, 054113 (2011).