The possibility of imaging single proteins constitutes an exciting challenge for x-ray lasers. Despite encouraging results on large particles, imaging small particles has proven to be difficult for two reasons: not quite high enough pulse intensity from currently available x-ray lasers and, as we demonstrate here, contamination of the aerosolized molecules by nonvolatile contaminants in the solution. The amount of contamination on the sample depends on the initial droplet size during aerosolization. Here, we show that, with our electrospray injector, we can decrease the size of aerosol droplets and demonstrate virtually contaminant-free sample delivery of organelles, small virions, and proteins. The results presented here, together with the increased performance of next-generation x-ray lasers, constitute an important stepping stone toward the ultimate goal of protein structure determination from imaging at room temperature and high temporal resolution.

We have recorded the diffraction patterns from individual xenon clusters irradiated with intense extreme ultraviolet pulses to investigate the influence of light-induced electronic changes on the scattering response. The clusters were irradiated with short wavelength pulses in the wavelength regime of different 4d inner-shell resonances of neutral and ionic xenon, resulting in distinctly different optical properties from areas in the clusters with lower or higher charge states. The data show the emergence of a transient structure with a spatial extension of tens of nanometers within the otherwise homogeneous sample. Simulations indicate that ionization and nanoplasma formation result in a light-induced outer shell in the cluster with a strongly altered refractive index. The presented resonant scattering approach enables imaging of ultrafast electron dynamics on their natural timescale.

Intense x-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) pulses hold great promise for imaging function in nanoscale and biological systems with atomic resolution. So far, however, the spatial resolution obtained from single shot experiments lags averaging static experiments. Here we report on a combined computational and experimental study about ultrafast diffractive imaging of sucrose clusters which are benchmark organic samples. Our theoretical model matches the experimental data from the water window to the keV x-ray regime. The large-scale dynamic scattering calculations reveal that transient phenomena driven by non-linear x-ray interaction are decisive for ultrafast imaging applications. Our study illuminates the complex interplay of the imaging process with the rapidly changing transient electronic structures in XFEL experiments and shows how computational models allow optimization of the parameters for ultrafast imaging experiments.