High-speed free-run ptychography at the Australian Synchrotron

Over the last decade ptychography has progressed rapidly from a specialist ultramicroscopy technique into a mature method accessible to non-expert users. However, to improve scientific value ptychography data must reconstruct reliably, with high image quality and at no cost to other correlative methods. Presented here is the implementation of high-speed ptychography used at the Australian Synchrotron on the XFM beamline, which includes a free-run data collection mode where dead time is eliminated and the scan time is optimized. It is shown that free-run data collection is viable for fast and high-quality ptychography by demonstrating extremely high data rate acquisition covering areas up to 352 000 µm(2) at up to 140 µm(2) s(−1), with 13× spatial resolution enhancement compared with the beam size. With these improvements, ptychography at velocities up to 250 µm s(−1) is approaching speeds compatible with fast-scanning X-ray fluorescence microscopy. The combination of these methods provides morphological context for elemental and chemical information, enabling unique scientific outcomes.