Single-Molecule Imaging with X-Ray Free-Electron Lasers: Dream or Reality?

Journal Article · Fri Mar 11 00:00:00 EST 2011 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.106.105504· OSTI ID:21562086

Fratalocchi, A ^[1]; Ruocco, G ^[2]

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1. PRIMALIGHT, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Applied Mathematics and Computational Science, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955-6900 (Saudi Arabia); Department of Physics, Sapienza University of Rome, P.le A. Moro 2, 00185, Rome (Italy)
2. Department of Physics, Sapienza University of Rome, P.le A. Moro 2, 00185, Rome (Italy); IPCF-CNR, c/o Department of Physics, Sapienza University, P.le Aldo Moro 2, 00185, Rome (Italy)

X-ray free-electron lasers (XFEL) are revolutionary photon sources, whose ultrashort, brilliant pulses are expected to allow single-molecule diffraction experiments providing structural information on the atomic length scale of nonperiodic objects. This ultimate goal, however, is currently hampered by several challenging questions basically concerning sample damage, Coulomb explosion, and the role of nonlinearity. By employing an original ab initio approach, we address these issues showing that XFEL-based single-molecule imaging will be only 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.

• OSTI ID: 21562086
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Vol. 106, Issue 10; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.105504; (c) 2011 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 0031-9007
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
DENSITY
DIFFRACTION
FREE ELECTRON LASERS
LENGTH
MOLECULES
NONLINEAR PROBLEMS
PHOTONS
PHYSICAL RADIATION EFFECTS
PULSES
X RADIATION
BOSONS
COHERENT SCATTERING
DIMENSIONS
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
IONIZING RADIATIONS
LASERS
MASSLESS PARTICLES
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
RADIATION EFFECTS
RADIATIONS
SCATTERING