Researchers unlock faster X-ray imaging by redesigning probe patterns
Scientists have identified the optimal design for multi-beam X-ray probes that dramatically speed up microscopy without sacrificing image quality. The finding could accelerate high-throughput imaging in semiconductor inspection, materials research, and drug discovery—industries where microscopy bottlenecks currently limit production and discovery timelines.
Originaltitel: Optimizing probes for multi-beam ptychography
Multi-beam ptychography (MBP) offers a scalable solution to improve the throughput of state-of-the-art ptychography by increasing the number of coherent beams that illuminate the sample simultaneously. However, increasing the number of beams in ptychography makes ptychographical reconstructions more challenging and less robust. It has been demonstrated that MBP reconstructions can be made more robust by using well-structured and mutually separable probes. Here, we present a quantitative framework to assess probe sets based on separability, uniformity, and fabrication feasibility. We show that Hadamard-based phase masks consistently outperform Zernike polynomials, experimentally feasible phase plates, and spiral phase masks in MBP across varying scan densities. While spiral masks yield comparable resolution, they scale less efficiently due to increased structural complexity. Our results establish practical criteria for evaluating and designing structured probes to enable more robust and scalable implementation of MBP in high-throughput coherent X-ray and EUV imaging.