SAMOP 2023 – scientific programme

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A: Fachverband Atomphysik

A 22: Atomic Clusters (joint session A/MO)

A 22.2: Talk

Thursday, March 9, 2023, 11:30–11:45, F107

3D Femtosecond Snapshots of Silver Nanoclusters — •Alessandro Colombo for the FLASH-SilverClusters collaboration — Laboratory for Solid State Physics, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland

Thanks to X-ray Free-Electron Lasers, Coherent Diffraction Imaging (CDI) allows femtosecond snapshots of matter at the nanoscale. When the diffracted light is recorded up to a sufficiently wide scattering angle, a single two-dimensional diffraction pattern carries 3D structural information on the sample. However, the non-trivial mathematical link between the sample's 3D shape and the 2D diffraction pattern renders 3D single-shot CDI a scientific challenge. Here we present a reconstruction method [1] that unveils the intriguing three-dimensional architectures of free-flying silver nanoclusters, retrieved from single wide-angle scattering images acquired at the soft X-ray Free-Electron Laser FLASH in Hamburg. The retrieved shapes of the silver clusters show satisfactory reliability and consistency, also revealing new structural motifs. Thanks to its great versatility, the method is then further extended to nanocrystals agglomerates, allowing for the first time a direct 3D insight into their growth process and surprising structures. This work represents a strong proof of concept for this imaging approach, raising the bar of the capabilities of 3D coherent diffraction imaging from single shot.

[1] Colombo, A. , et al. arXiv:2208.04044 (2022).