Combination of ptychography and near-edge resonance

One of the key aspects of progress in X-ray microscopy is the advent of coherent diffractive imaging, which basically does not use any lenses. Ptychography is one improved version of a series of techniques using coherent X-ray beams and allows reconstructions of both strongly and weakly scattering samples. A further extension of this method has recently been published by a German group led by Professor T. Salditt (Georg-August-University Göttingen). The research introduced chemical contrasts based on near-edge X-ray absorption fine structures. The group demonstrated that two different molecules in a biological system are distinguished visually by using the contrasts near the oxygen K edge. For more information, see the paper, "Chemical Contrast in Soft X-Ray Ptychography", M. Beckers et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 208101 (2011).