Scanning diffraction imaging without stable illumination and scan position information

Ptychography has gained significant prominence at synchrotron facilities globally for characterizing the topological structure and intricate properties of biological and material specimens at the nanometer or atomic scale. Its high-resolution potential relies on accurate scan position information, substantial overlap ratio, and a stable probe; however, fulfilling these requirements becomes increasingly challenging as resolution approaches atomic scales. This paper proposes a multiple-shot coherent modulation imaging (multiCMI) scheme to eliminate those strict requirements. Optical light validation demonstrated that the completely unknown scan positions could be retrieved better than 10 nm precision. Sub-pixel position accuracy was still achievable with only a 13% overlap ratio. For the X-ray dataset recorded under an unstable probe and 18% overlap, our method successfully retrieved the varying probe functions, unknown positions, and sample functions simultaneously. Probe spatial deviations of 500 nm and 50 nm along the X and Y axes were measured, which were not accessible by previous methods. With all these promising features, we expect the proposed multiCMI method will significantly simplify the implementation and widen the scope of applications of scanning diffraction microscopy, especially at nanometer and atomic scale imaging.