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Abstract: Ptychography is a scanning coherent diffraction imaging technique which provides high resolution imaging and complete spatial information of the complex electric field probe and sample transmission function. Its ability to accurately determine the illumination probe has led to its use at modern synchrotrons and free-electron lasers as a wavefront-sensing technique for optics alignment, monitoring and correction. Recent developments in the ptychography reconstruction process now incorporate a modal decomposition of the illuminating probe and relax the restriction of using sources with high spatial coherence. In this article a practical implementation of hard X-ray ptychography from a partially coherent X-ray source with a large number of modes is demonstrated experimentally. A strongly diffracting Siemens star test sample is imaged using the focused beam produced by either a Fresnel zone plate or beryllium compound refractive lens. The recovered probe from each optic is back propagated in order to plot the beam caustic and determine the precise focal size and position. The power distribution of the reconstructed probe modes also allows the quantification of the beams coherence and is compared with the values predicted by a Gaussian–Schell model and the optics exit intensity.

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Abstract: Cadmium–zinc–telluride (CZT) pixel detectors represent a consolidated choice for the development of room-temperature spectroscopic X-ray imagers, finding important applications in medical imaging, often as detection modules of a variety of new SPECT and CT systems. Detectors with 3–5 mm thicknesses are able to efficiently detect X-rays up to 140 keV giving reasonable room-temperature energy resolution. In this work, the room-temperature performance of 3 mm-thick CZT pixel detectors, recently developed at IMEM/CNR of Parma (Italy), is presented. Sub-millimetre detector arrays with pixel pitch less than 500 µm were fabricated. The detectors are characterized by good room-temperature performance even at high bias voltage operation (6000 V cm−1), with energy resolutions (FWHM) of 3% (1.8 keV) and 1.6% (2 keV) at 59.5 keV and 122.1 keV, respectively. Charge-sharing investigations were performed with both uncollimated and collimated synchrotron X-ray beams with particular attention to recovering the charge losses at the inter-pixel gap region. High rate measurements demonstrated the absence of high-flux radiation-induced polarization phenomena up to 25 × 106 photons mm−2 s−1.

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Abstract: A significant aspect of the Phase-II Upgrade of the ATLAS detector is the replacement of the current Inner Detector with the ATLAS Inner Tracker (ITk). The ATLAS ITk is an all-silicon detector consisting of a pixel tracker and a strip tracker. Sensors for the ITk strip tracker have been developed to withstand the high radiation environment in the ATLAS detector after the High Luminosity Upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, which will significantly increase the rate of particle collisions and resulting particle tracks. During their operation in the ATLAS detector, sensors for the ITk strip tracker are expected to accumulate fluences up to 1.6 1015neq/cm2 (including a safety factor of 1.5), which will significantly affect their performance. One characteristic of interest for highly irradiated sensors is the shape and homogeneity of the electric field inside its active area. For the results presented here, diodes with edge structures similar to full size ATLAS sensors were irradiated up to fluences comparable to those in the ATLAS ITk strip tracker and their electric fields mapped using a micro-focused X-ray beam (beam diameter 2 3 m2). This study shows the extension and shape of the electric field inside highly irradiated diodes over a range of applied bias voltages. Additionally, measurements of the outline of the depleted sensor areas allow a comparison of the measured leakage current for different fluences with expectations for the corresponding active areas.

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Abstract: The performance and durability of Ni-rich cathode materials are controlled in no small part by their mechanical durability, as chemomechanical breakdown at the nano-scale leads to increased internal resistance and decreased storage capacity. The mechanical degradation is caused by the transient lithium diffusion processes during charge and discharge of layered oxide spherical cathode micro-particles, leading to highly anisotropic incompatible strain fields. Experimental characterisation of the transient mechanisms underlying crack and void formation requires the combination of very high resolution in space (sub-micron) and time (sub-second) domains without charge interruption. The present study is focused on sub-micron focused operando synchrotron X-ray diffraction and in situ Ptycho-Tomographic nano-scale imaging of a single nano-structured LiNi0.8Co0.1Mn0.1O2 core-shell particle during charge to obtain a thorough understanding of the anisotropic deformation and damage phenomena at a particle level. Preferential grain orientation within the shell of a spherical secondary cathode particle provides improved lithium transport but is also associated with spatially varying anisotropic expansion of the hexagonal unit cell in the c-axis and contraction in the a-axis. These effects were resolved in relation to the grain orientation, and the link established with the nucleation and growth of intergranular cracks and voids that causes electrical isolation of active cathode material. Coupled multi-physics Finite Element Modelling of diffusion and deformation inside a single cathode particle during charge and discharge was validated by comparison with experimental evidence and allowed unequivocal identification of key mechanical drivers underlying Li-ion battery degradation.

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Abstract: We demonstrate experimentally the ability to use a single-pixel detector for two-dimensional high-resolution x-ray imaging of fast dynamics. We image the rotation of a spinning chopper at 100 kHz and at spatial resolution of about 40 microns by using the computational ghost imaging approach. The technique we develop can be used for the imaging of fast dynamics of periodic and periodically stimulated effects with a large field of view and at low dose.