3D single-shot ptychography with highly tilted illuminations

Robust 3D phase retrieval via compressed support detection from snapshot diffraction pattern

Traditional multislice iterative phase retrieval (MIPR) from snapshot two-dimensional measurements suffers from the two limitations of pre-defined support and iterative stagnation. To eliminate the requirements for priori knowledge of support masks, this paper proposes a multislice iterative phase retrieval algorithm based on compressed support detection and hybrid input-output algorithm (CSD-MIPR-HIO). The CSD-MIPR-HIO algorithm firstly uses compressed support detection to adaptively detect the support masks of each plane from single 2D diffraction intensity, and then uses a hybrid input-output (HIO) iterative algorithm for MIPR. The proposed method breaks the limitations of traditional MIPR algorithms on priori knowledge of support masks and achieve high-quality reconstruction in noisy environments. Numerical and optical experiments confirm the feasibility, superiority, and robustness of our proposed CSD-MIPR-HIO method.

An efficient ptychography reconstruction strategy through fine-tuning of large pre-trained deep learning model

With pre-trained large models and their associated fine-tuning paradigms being constantly applied in deep learning, the performance of large models achieves a dramatic boost, mostly owing to the improvements on both data quantity and quality. Next-generation synchrotron light sources offer ultra-bright and highly coherent X-rays, which are becoming one of the largest data sources for scientific experiments. As one of the most data-intensive scanning-based imaging methodologies, ptychography produces an immense amount of data, making the adoption of large deep learning models possible. Here, we introduce and refine the architecture of a neural network model to improve the reconstruction performance, through fine-tuning large pre-trained model using a variety of datasets. The pre-trained model exhibits remarkable generalization capability, while the fine-tuning strategy enhances the reconstruction quality. We anticipate this work will contribute to the advancement of deep learning methods in ptychography, as well as in broader coherent diffraction imaging methodologies in future.

Optical ptychography for biomedical imaging: recent progress and future directions [Invited]

Ptychography is an enabling microscopy technique for both fundamental and applied sciences. In the past decade, it has become an indispensable imaging tool in most X-ray synchrotrons and national laboratories worldwide. However, ptychography's limited resolution and throughput in the visible light regime have prevented its wide adoption in biomedical research. Recent developments in this technique have resolved these issues and offer turnkey solutions for high-throughput optical imaging with minimum hardware modifications. The demonstrated imaging throughput is now greater than that of a high-end whole slide scanner. In this review, we discuss the basic principle of ptychography and summarize the main milestones of its development. Different ptychographic implementations are categorized into four groups based on their lensless/lens-based configurations and coded-illumination/coded-detection operations. We also highlight the related biomedical applications, including digital pathology, drug screening, urinalysis, blood analysis, cytometric analysis, rare cell screening, cell culture monitoring, cell and tissue imaging in 2D and 3D, polarimetric analysis, among others. Ptychography for high-throughput optical imaging, currently in its early stages, will continue to improve in performance and expand in its applications. We conclude this review article by pointing out several directions for its future development.

Single-shot ptychography at a soft X-ray free-electron laser

In this work, single-shot ptychography was adapted to the XUV range and, as a proof of concept, performed at the free-electron laser FLASH at DESY to obtain a high-resolution reconstruction of a test sample. Ptychography is a coherent diffraction imaging technique capable of imaging extended samples with diffraction-limited resolution. However, its scanning nature makes ptychography time-consuming and also prevents its application for mapping of dynamical processes. Single-shot ptychography can be realized by collecting the diffraction patterns of multiple overlapping beams in one shot and, in recent years, several concepts based on two con-focal lenses were employed in the visible regime. Unfortunately, this approach cannot be extended straightforwardly to X-ray wavelengths due to the use of refractive optics. Here, a novel single-shot ptychography setup utilizes a combination of X-ray focusing optics with a two-dimensional beam-splitting diffraction grating. It facilitates single-shot imaging of extended samples at X-ray wavelengths.