Soft x-ray microscopy
Our research
Senior scientist(s): Hans Hertz, Jonas Sellberg
Microscopy in the water window (=2.3-4.4 nm; E=284-540 eV) allows for imaging of unstained intact cells in their near-native environment with unprecedented resolution and contrast [1]. Synchrotron-based x-ray microscopy has demonstrated significant progress the last few years, delivering results of high biological relevance with second-range exposure times. Laboratory microscopy now produces images with synchrotron quality but with longer exposure times.
We demonstrated the first sub-visible-resolution laboratory water-window x-ray microscope [2]. The microscope relies on our pioneering work on high-brightness liquid-jet laser-plasma sources [3], normal-incidence multilayer condenser optics, and in-house diffractive optics. Recent work include 3D cryo-tomography of intact cells (see Figure 1) and imaging of giant DNA virus [4,5]. The resolution is down to 25 nm and 10 s exposure times were recently demonstrated [6].
References
- See, e.g., A. Sakdinawat and D. Attwood, Nature Phot. 4, 840-848 (2010).
- M. Berglund et al., J. Microscopy 197, 268 (2000).
- L. Rymell and H.M. Hertz, Opt. Commun. 103, 105 (1993).
- H. M. Hertz et al., J. Struct. Biol. 177, 267 (2012).
- M. Kördel et al., Sci. Rep. 11, 5025 (2021).
- M. Kördel et al., Rev. Sci. Instrum. 91, 023701 (2020).
People
