| 1. |
- Aleksich, Mariya, et al.
(författare)
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XFEL Microcrystallography of Self-Assembling Silver n-Alkanethiolates
- 2023
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Ingår i: Journal of the American Chemical Society. - 0002-7863. ; 145:31, s. 17042-17055
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- New synthetic hybrid materials and their increasing complexity have placed growing demands on crystal growth for single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. Unfortunately, not all chemical systems are conducive to the isolation of single crystals for traditional characterization. Here, small-molecule serial femtosecond crystallography (smSFX) at atomic resolution (0.833 Å) is employed to characterize microcrystalline silver n-alkanethiolates with various alkyl chain lengths at X-ray free electron laser facilities, resolving long-standing controversies regarding the atomic connectivity and odd-even effects of layer stacking. smSFX provides high-quality crystal structures directly from the powder of the true unknowns, a capability that is particularly useful for systems having notoriously small or defective crystals. We present crystal structures of silver n-butanethiolate (C4), silver n-hexanethiolate (C6), and silver n-nonanethiolate (C9). We show that an odd-even effect originates from the orientation of the terminal methyl group and its role in packing efficiency. We also propose a secondary odd-even effect involving multiple mosaic blocks in the crystals containing even-numbered chains, identified by selected-area electron diffraction measurements. We conclude with a discussion of the merits of the synthetic preparation for the preparation of microdiffraction specimens and compare the long-range order in these crystals to that of self-assembled monolayers.
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| 2. |
- Kurta, Ruslan P., et al.
(författare)
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Correlations in Scattered X-Ray Laser Pulses Reveal Nanoscale Structural Features of Viruses
- 2017
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Ingår i: Physical Review Letters. - : American Physical Society. - 0031-9007 .- 1079-7114. ; 119:15
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We use extremely bright and ultrashort pulses from an x-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) to measure correlations in x rays scattered from individual bioparticles. This allows us to go beyond the traditional crystallography and single-particle imaging approaches for structure investigations. We employ angular correlations to recover the three-dimensional (3D) structure of nanoscale viruses from x-ray diffraction data measured at the Linac Coherent Light Source. Correlations provide us with a comprehensive structural fingerprint of a 3D virus, which we use both for model-based and ab initio structure recovery. The analyses reveal a clear indication that the structure of the viruses deviates from the expected perfect icosahedral symmetry. Our results anticipate exciting opportunities for XFEL studies of the structure and dynamics of nanoscale objects by means of angular correlations.
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| 3. |
- Li, Haoyuan, et al.
(författare)
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Diffraction data from aerosolized Coliphage PR772 virus particles imaged with the Linac Coherent Light Source
- 2020
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Ingår i: Scientific Data. - : NATURE RESEARCH. - 2052-4463. ; 7:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Single Particle Imaging (SPI) with intense coherent X-ray pulses from X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) has the potential to produce molecular structures without the need for crystallization or freezing. Here we present a dataset of 285,944 diffraction patterns from aerosolized Coliphage PR772 virus particles injected into the femtosecond X-ray pulses of the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS). Additional exposures with background information are also deposited. The diffraction data were collected at the Atomic, Molecular and Optical Science Instrument (AMO) of the LCLS in 4 experimental beam times during a period of four years. The photon energy was either 1.2 or 1.7keV and the pulse energy was between 2 and 4 mJ in a focal spot of about 1.3 mu m x 1.7 mu m full width at half maximum (FWHM). The X-ray laser pulses captured the particles in random orientations. The data offer insight into aerosolised virus particles in the gas phase, contain information relevant to improving experimental parameters, and provide a basis for developing algorithms for image analysis and reconstruction.
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| 4. |
- Reddy, Hemanth K. N., et al.
(författare)
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Coherent soft X-ray diffraction imaging of coliphage PR772 at the Linac coherent light source
- 2017
-
Ingår i: Scientia Danica. Series H. Humanistica 4. - : Nature Publishing Group. - 1904-5506 .- 2052-4463. ; 4
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Single-particle diffraction from X-ray Free Electron Lasers offers the potential for molecular structure determination without the need for crystallization. In an effort to further develop the technique, we present a dataset of coherent soft X-ray diffraction images of Coliphage PR772 virus, collected at the Atomic Molecular Optics (AMO) beamline with pnCCD detectors in the LAMP instrument at the Linac Coherent Light Source. The diameter of PR772 ranges from 65-70 nm, which is considerably smaller than the previously reported similar to 600 nm diameter Mimivirus. This reflects continued progress in XFEL-based single-particle imaging towards the single molecular imaging regime. The data set contains significantly more single particle hits than collected in previous experiments, enabling the development of improved statistical analysis, reconstruction algorithms, and quantitative metrics to determine resolution and self-consistency.
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| 5. |
- Villanueva Perez, Pablo, et al.
(författare)
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Megahertz X-ray Multi-projection imaging
- 2023
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Ingår i: arXiv.org. - 2331-8422.
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- X-ray time-resolved tomography is one of the most popular X-raytechniques to probe dynamics in three dimensions (3D). Recent developments in time-resolved tomography opened the possibility of recordingkilohertz-rate 3D movies. However, tomography requires rotating thesample with respect to the X-ray beam, which prevents characterization of faster structural dynamics. Here, we present megahertz (MHz)X-ray multi-projection imaging (MHz-XMPI), a technique capable ofrecording volumetric information at MHz rates and micrometer resolution without scanning the sample. We achieved this by harnessing theunique megahertz pulse structure and intensity of the European X-rayFree-electron Laser with a combination of novel detection and reconstruction approaches that do not require sample rotations. Our approachenables generating multiple X-ray probes that simultaneously record several angular projections for each pulse in the megahertz pulse burst.We provide a proof-of-concept demonstration of the MHz-XMPI technique’s capability to probe 4D (3D+time) information on stochasticphenomena and non-reproducible processes three orders of magnitudefaster than state-of-the-art time-resolved X-ray tomography, by generating 3D movies of binary droplet collisions. We anticipate that MHz-XMPIwill enable in-situ and operando studies that were impossible before,either due to the lack of temporal resolution or because the systemswere opaque (such as for MHz imaging based on optical microscopy).
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| 6. |
- Ayyer, Kartik, et al.
(författare)
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3D diffractive imaging of nanoparticle ensembles using an x-ray laser
- 2021
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Ingår i: Optica. - : Optical Society of America. - 2334-2536. ; 8:1, s. 15-23
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Single particle imaging at x-ray free electron lasers (XFELs) has the potential to determine the structure and dynamics of single biomolecules at room temperature. Two major hurdles have prevented this potential from being reached, namely, the collection of sufficient high-quality diffraction patterns and robust computational purification to overcome structural heterogeneity. We report the breaking of both of these barriers using gold nanoparticle test samples, recording around 10 million diffraction patterns at the European XFEL and structurally and orientationally sorting the patterns to obtain better than 3-nm-resolution 3D reconstructions for each of four samples. With these new developments, integrating advancements in x-ray sources, fast-framing detectors, efficient sample delivery, and data analysis algorithms, we illuminate the path towards sub-nano meter biomolecular imaging. The methods developed here can also be extended to characterize ensembles that are inherently diverse to obtain their full structural landscape. Published by The Optical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
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| 7. |
- Birnsteinova, Sarlota, et al.
(författare)
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Online dynamic flat-field correction for MHz microscopy data at European XFEL
- 2023
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Ingår i: Journal of Synchrotron Radiation. - 1600-5775. ; 30:6, s. 1030-1037
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The high pulse intensity and repetition rate of the European X-ray Free-Electron Laser (EuXFEL) provide superior temporal resolution compared with other X-ray sources. In combination with MHz X-ray microscopy techniques, it offers a unique opportunity to achieve superior contrast and spatial resolution in applications demanding high temporal resolution. In both live visualization and offline data analysis for microscopy experiments, baseline normalization is essential for further processing steps such as phase retrieval and modal decomposition. In addition, access to normalized projections during data acquisition can play an important role in decision-making and improve the quality of the data. However, the stochastic nature of X-ray free-electron laser sources hinders the use of standard flat-field normalization methods during MHz X-ray microscopy experiments. Here, an online (i.e. near real-time) dynamic flat-field correction method based on principal component analysis of dynamically evolving flat-field images is presented. The method is used for the normalization of individual X-ray projections and has been implemented as a near real-time analysis tool at the Single Particles, Clusters, and Biomolecules and Serial Femtosecond Crystallography (SPB/SFX) instrument of EuXFEL.
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| 8. |
- Ekeberg, Tomas, 1983-, et al.
(författare)
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Observation of a single protein by ultrafast X-ray diffraction
- 2024
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Ingår i: Light. - : Springer Nature. - 2095-5545 .- 2047-7538. ; 13:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The idea of using ultrashort X-ray pulses to obtain images of single proteins frozen in time has fascinated and inspired many. It was one of the arguments for building X-ray free-electron lasers. According to theory, the extremely intense pulses provide sufficient signal to dispense with using crystals as an amplifier, and the ultrashort pulse duration permits capturing the diffraction data before the sample inevitably explodes. This was first demonstrated on biological samples a decade ago on the giant mimivirus. Since then, a large collaboration has been pushing the limit of the smallest sample that can be imaged. The ability to capture snapshots on the timescale of atomic vibrations, while keeping the sample at room temperature, may allow probing the entire conformational phase space of macromolecules. Here we show the first observation of an X-ray diffraction pattern from a single protein, that of Escherichia coli GroEL which at 14 nm in diameter is the smallest biological sample ever imaged by X-rays, and demonstrate that the concept of diffraction before destruction extends to single proteins. From the pattern, it is possible to determine the approximate orientation of the protein. Our experiment demonstrates the feasibility of ultrafast imaging of single proteins, opening the way to single-molecule time-resolved studies on the femtosecond timescale.
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| 9. |
- Reuter, Fabian, et al.
(författare)
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Laser-induced, single droplet fragmentation dynamics revealed through megahertz x-ray microscopy
- 2023
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Ingår i: Physics of Fluids. - 1070-6631. ; 35:11
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The fragmentation dynamics of single water droplets from laser irradiation is studied with megahertz frame rate x-ray microscopy. Owed to the nearly refraction-free and penetrating imaging technique, we could look into the interior of the droplet and reveal that two mechanisms are responsible for the initial explosive fragmentation of the droplet. First, reflection and diffraction of the laser beam at the droplet interface result in the formation of laser ray caustics that lead to non-homogeneous heating of the droplet, locally above the critical temperature. Second, homogeneous cavitation in the droplet that is likely caused from shockwaves reflected as tension waves at the acoustic soft boundaries of the droplet. Further atomization occurs in three stages, first a fine sub-micrometer sized mist forms on the side of the droplet posterior to laser incidence, then micrometer sized droplets are expelled from the rim of an expanding liquid sheet, and finally into droplets of larger size through hole and ligament formation in the thinning liquid sheet where ligaments pinch off.
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| 10. |
- Rose, Max, et al.
(författare)
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Single-particle imaging without symmetry constraints at an X-ray free-electron laser
- 2018
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Ingår i: IUCrJ. - : INT UNION CRYSTALLOGRAPHY. - 2052-2525. ; 5, s. 727-736
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The analysis of a single-particle imaging (SPI) experiment performed at the AMO beamline at LCLS as part of the SPI initiative is presented here. A workflow for the three-dimensional virus reconstruction of the PR772 bacteriophage from measured single-particle data is developed. It consists of several well defined steps including single-hit diffraction data classification, refined filtering of the classified data, reconstruction of three-dimensional scattered intensity from the experimental diffraction patterns by orientation determination and a final three-dimensional reconstruction of the virus electron density without symmetry constraints. The analysis developed here revealed and quantified nanoscale features of the PR772 virus measured in this experiment, with the obtained resolution better than 10 nm, with a clear indication that the structure was compressed in one direction and, as such, deviates from ideal icosahedral symmetry.
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| 11. |
- Soyama, Hitoshi, et al.
(författare)
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Revealing the origins of vortex cavitation in a Venturi tube by high speed X-ray imaging
- 2023
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Ingår i: Ultrasonics Sonochemistry. - 1350-4177. ; 101
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Hydrodynamic cavitation is useful in many processing applications, for example, in chemical reactors, water treatment and biochemical engineering. An important type of hydrodynamic cavitation that occurs in a Venturi tube is vortex cavitation known to cause luminescence whose intensity is closely related to the size and number of cavitation events. However, the mechanistic origins of bubbles constituting vortex cavitation remains unclear, although it has been concluded that the pressure fields generated by the cavitation collapse strongly depends on the bubble geometry. The common view is that vortex cavitation consists of numerous small spherical bubbles. In the present paper, aspects of vortex cavitation arising in a Venturi tube were visualized using high-speed X-ray imaging at SPring-8 and European XFEL. It was discovered that vortex cavitation in a Venturi tube consisted of angulated rather than spherical bubbles. The tangential velocity of the surface of vortex cavitation was assessed considering the Rankine vortex model.
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| 12. |
- Vagovič, Patrik, et al.
(författare)
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Megahertz x-ray microscopy at x-ray free-electron laser and synchrotron sources
- 2019
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Ingår i: Optica. - 2334-2536. ; 6:9, s. 1106-1109
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Modern emerging technologies, such as additive manufacturing, bioprinting, and new material production, require novel metrology tools to probe fundamental high-speed dynamics happening in such systems. Here we demonstrate the application of the megahertz (MHz) European X-ray Free-Electron Laser (EuXFEL) to image the fast stochastic processes induced by a laser on water-filled capillaries with micrometer-scale spatial resolution. The EuXFEL provides superior contrast and spatial resolution compared to equivalent state-of-the-art synchrotron experiments. This work opens up new possibilities for the characterization of MHz stochastic processes on the nanosecond to microsecond time scales with object velocities up to a few kilometers per second using XFEL sources.
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| 13. |
- Wiedorn, Max O., et al.
(författare)
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Megahertz serial crystallography
- 2018
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Ingår i: Nature Communications. - : Nature Publishing Group. - 2041-1723. ; 9
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The new European X-ray Free-Electron Laser is the first X-ray free-electron laser capable of delivering X-ray pulses with a megahertz inter-pulse spacing, more than four orders of magnitude higher than previously possible. However, to date, it has been unclear whether it would indeed be possible to measure high-quality diffraction data at megahertz pulse repetition rates. Here, we show that high-quality structures can indeed be obtained using currently available operating conditions at the European XFEL. We present two complete data sets, one from the well-known model system lysozyme and the other from a so far unknown complex of a beta-lactamase from K. pneumoniae involved in antibiotic resistance. This result opens up megahertz serial femtosecond crystallography (SFX) as a tool for reliable structure determination, substrate screening and the efficient measurement of the evolution and dynamics of molecular structures using megahertz repetition rate pulses available at this new class of X-ray laser source.
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| 14. |
- Yefanov, Oleksandr, et al.
(författare)
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Evaluation of serial crystallographic structure determination within megahertz pulse trains
- 2019
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Ingår i: Structural Dynamics. - : AMER INST PHYSICS. - 2329-7778. ; 6:6
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The new European X-ray Free-Electron Laser (European XFEL) is the first X-ray free-electron laser capable of delivering intense X-ray pulses with a megahertz interpulse spacing in a wavelength range suitable for atomic resolution structure determination. An outstanding but crucial question is whether the use of a pulse repetition rate nearly four orders of magnitude higher than previously possible results in unwanted structural changes due to either radiation damage or systematic effects on data quality. Here, separate structures from the first and subsequent pulses in the European XFEL pulse train were determined, showing that there is essentially no difference between structures determined from different pulses under currently available operating conditions at the European XFEL.
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| 15. |
- Zhuang, Yulong, et al.
(författare)
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Unsupervised learning approaches to characterizing heterogeneous samples using X-ray single-particle imaging
- 2022
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Ingår i: IUCrJ. - : International Union of Crystallography (IUCr). - 2052-2525. ; 9, s. 204-214
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- One of the outstanding analytical problems in X-ray single-particle imaging (SPI) is the classification of structural heterogeneity, which is especially difficult given the low signal-to-noise ratios of individual patterns and the fact that even identical objects can yield patterns that vary greatly when orientation is taken into consideration. Proposed here are two methods which explicitly account for this orientation-induced variation and can robustly determine the structural landscape of a sample ensemble. The first, termed common-line principal component analysis (PCA), provides a rough classification which is essentially parameter free and can be run automatically on any SPI dataset. The second method, utilizing variation auto-encoders (VAEs), can generate 3D structures of the objects at any point in the structural landscape. Both these methods are implemented in combination with the noise-tolerant expand-maximizecompress (EMC) algorithm and its utility is demonstrated by applying it to an experimental dataset from gold nanoparticles with only a few thousand photons per pattern. Both discrete structural classes and continuous deformations are recovered. These developments diverge from previous approaches of extracting reproducible subsets of patterns from a dataset and open up the possibility of moving beyond the study of homogeneous sample sets to addressing open questions on topics such as nanocrystal growth and dynamics, as well as phase transitions which have not been externally triggered.
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| 16. |
- Bellucci, Valerio, et al.
(författare)
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Hard X-ray stereographic microscopy for single-shot differential phase imaging
- 2023
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Ingår i: Optics Express. - 1094-4087. ; 31:11, s. 18399-18406
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The characterisation of fast phenomena at the microscopic scale is required for the understanding of catastrophic responses of materials to loads and shocks, the processing of materials by optical or mechanical means, the processes involved in many key technologies such as additive manufacturing and microfluidics, and the mixing of fuels in combustion. Such processes are usually stochastic in nature and occur within the opaque interior volumes of materials or samples, with complex dynamics that evolve in all three dimensions at speeds exceeding many meters per second. There is therefore a need for the ability to record three-dimensional X-ray movies of irreversible processes with resolutions of micrometers and frame rates of microseconds. Here we demonstrate a method to achieve this by recording a stereo phase-contrast image pair in a single exposure. The two images are combined computationally to reconstruct a 3D model of the object. The method is extendable to more than two simultaneous views. When combined with megahertz pulse trains of X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) it will be possible to create movies able to resolve 3D trajectories with velocities of kilometers per second.
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| 17. |
- Bielecki, Johan, et al.
(författare)
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Perspectives on single particle imaging with x rays at the advent of high repetition rate x-ray free electron laser sources
- 2020
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Ingår i: Structural Dynamics. - : AIP Publishing. - 2329-7778. ; 7:4
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- X-ray free electron lasers (XFELs) now routinely produce millijoule level pulses of x-ray photons with tens of femtoseconds duration. Such x-ray intensities gave rise to the idea that weakly scattering particles-perhaps single biomolecules or viruses-could be investigated free of radiation damage. Here, we examine elements from the past decade of so-called single particle imaging with hard XFELs. We look at the progress made to date and identify some future possible directions for the field. In particular, we summarize the presently achieved resolutions as well as identifying the bottlenecks and enabling technologies to future resolution improvement, which in turn enables application to samples of scientific interest.
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| 18. |
- Buakor, Khachiwan, et al.
(författare)
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Shot-to-shot flat-field correction at X-ray free-electron lasers
- 2022
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Ingår i: Optics Express. - 1094-4087. ; 30:7, s. 10633-10644
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) provide high-brilliance pulses, which offer unique opportunities for coherent X-ray imaging techniques, such as in-line holography. One of the fundamental steps to process in-line holographic data is flat-field correction, which mitigates imaging artifacts and, in turn, enables phase reconstructions. However, conventional flat-field correction approaches cannot correct single XFEL pulses due to the stochastic nature of the self-amplified spontaneous emission (SASE), the mechanism responsible for the high brilliance of XFELs. Here, we demonstrate on simulated and megahertz imaging data, measured at the European XFEL, the possibility of overcoming such a limitation by using two different methods based on principal component analysis and deep learning. These methods retrieve flat-field corrected images from individual frames by separating the sample and flat-field signal contributions; thus, enabling advanced phase-retrieval reconstructions. We anticipate that the proposed methods can be implemented in a real-time processing pipeline, which will enable online data analysis and phase reconstructions of coherent full-field imaging techniques such as in-line holography at XFELs.
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| 19. |
- Dawod, Ibrahim, et al.
(författare)
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Anisotropic melting of ice induced by ultrafast non-thermal heating
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Water and ice are routinely studied with X-rays to reveal their diverse structures and anomalous properties. We employ a hybrid collisional-radiative/molecular dynamics method to explore how femtosecond X-ray pulses interact with hexagonal ice. We find that ice makes a phase transition into a crystalline plasma where its initial structure is maintained up to tens of femtoseconds. The ultrafast melting process occurs anisotropically, where different geometric configurations of the structure melt on different time scales. The transient state and anisotropic melting of crystals can be captured by X-ray diffraction, which impacts any study of crystalline structures probed by femtosecond X-ray lasers.
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| 20. |
- Dawod, Ibrahim, et al.
(författare)
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MolDStruct : modelling the dynamics and structure of matter exposed to ultrafast X-ray lasers with hybrid collisional-radiative/molecular dynamics
- 2024
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Ingår i: Journal of Chemical Physics. - : American Institute of Physics (AIP). - 0021-9606 .- 1089-7690. ; 160:18
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We describe a method to compute photon–matter interaction and atomic dynamics with x-ray lasers using a hybrid code based on classical molecular dynamics and collisional-radiative calculations. The forces between the atoms are dynamically determined based on changes to their electronic occupations and the formation of a free electron cloud created from the irradiation of photons in the x-ray spectrum. The rapid transition from neutral solid matter to dense plasma phase allows the use of screened potentials, reducing the number of non-bonded interactions. In combination with parallelization through domain decomposition, the hybrid code handles large-scale molecular dynamics and ionization. This method is applicable for large enough samples (solids, liquids, proteins, viruses, atomic clusters, and crystals) that, when exposed to an x-ray laser pulse, turn into a plasma in the first few femtoseconds of the interaction. We present four examples demonstrating the applicability of the method. We investigate the non-thermal heating and scattering of bulk water and damage-induced dynamics of a protein crystal using an x-ray pump–probe scheme. In both cases, we compare to the experimental data. For single particle imaging, we simulate the ultrafast dynamics of a methane cluster exposed to a femtosecond x-ray laser. In the context of coherent diffractive imaging, we study the fragmentation as given by an x-ray pump–probe setup to understand the evolution of radiation damage in the time range of hundreds of femtoseconds.
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| 21. |
- Eliah Dawod, Ibrahim, et al.
(författare)
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Imaging of femtosecond bond breaking and charge dynamics in ultracharged peptides
- 2022
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Ingår i: Physical Chemistry, Chemical Physics - PCCP. - : Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). - 1463-9076 .- 1463-9084. ; 24:3, s. 1532-1543
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- X-ray free-electrons lasers have revolutionized the method of imaging biological macromolecules such as proteins, viruses and cells by opening the door to structural determination of both single particles and crystals at room temperature. By utilizing high intensity X-ray pulses on femtosecond timescales, the effects of radiation damage can be reduced. Achieving high resolution structures will likely require knowledge of how radiation damage affects the structure on an atomic scale, since the experimentally obtained electron densities will be reconstructed in the presence of radiation damage. Detailed understanding of the expected damage scenarios provides further information, in addition to guiding possible corrections that may need to be made to obtain a damage free reconstruction. In this work, we have quantified the effects of ionizing photon-matter interactions using first principles molecular dynamics. We utilize density functional theory to calculate bond breaking and charge dynamics in three ultracharged molecules and two different structural conformations that are important to the structural integrity of biological macromolecules, comparing to our previous studies on amino acids. The effects of the ultracharged states and subsequent bond breaking in real space are studied in reciprocal space using coherent diffractive imaging of an ensemble of aligned biomolecules in the gas phase.
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| 22. |
- Eliah Dawod, Ibrahim
(författare)
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Simulations of ultrafast photon-matter interactions for molecular imaging with X-ray lasers
- 2024
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Biological structure determination has had new avenues of investigation opened due to the introduction of X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs). These X-ray lasers provide an extreme amount of photons on ultrafast timescales used to probe matter, and in particular biomolecules. The high intensity of the X-rays destroys the sample, though not before structural information has been acquired. The unique properties of the probe provide the unprecedented opportunity to study the un-crystallized form of biological macromolecules, small crystals of biomolecules and their dynamics. In this work, we study processes in XFEL imaging experiments that could affect the achievable resolution of the protein structure in a diffraction experiment. Elastic scattering is the process which provides structural information and leaves the sample unperturbed. This interaction occurs far less often compared to damage inducing processes, such as photoabsorption, which leads to rapid ionization of the studied sample. By using density functional theory, we study the effect of ultrahigh charge states in small systems, such as amino acids and peptides, on the subsequent bond breaking and charge dynamics. Reproducible fragmentation patterns are studied in order to find features that could be understood in larger systems, such as proteins. Biomolecules are dynamical systems, and the currently used pulse duration is not short enough to outrun the movement of the atoms. The diffraction patterns acquired in an experiment are therefore an incoherent sum of slightly different conformations of the same system. Water can help to reduce these structural variations, but the water molecules themselves will then be a source of noise. Using classical molecular dynamics, we study the optimal amount of water that should be used to achieve the highest resolution. To simulate ultrafast molecular dynamics of larger systems such as proteins, we develop a hybrid Monte Carlo/molecular dynamics model. We utilize it to simulate the fragmentation dynamics of small proteins and investigate the possibility to extract structural information from the fragmentation patterns. For larger systems exposed to X-ray lasers, such as viruses and crystals, we develop a hybrid collisional-radiative and classical molecular dynamics approach. The method is used in several projects, both in theoretical studies and to support experiments conducted at XFEL facilities. In particular, we simulate the interaction of hexagonal ice with an X-ray laser, and show the structure makes a phase transition from the native crystal state to a plasma, while still partly retaining structural order. Furthermore, we note that the structural changes occur in an anisotropic manner, where different local structural configurations in ice decay on different time-scales. Preliminary experimental results show this anisotropic dynamics in an X-ray pump-probe serial femtosecond X-ray crystallography experiment performed on I3C crystals. The real space dynamics as a function of probe delay given by our theoretical model and the experiment both show good agreement, where the iodine atoms exhibit correlated motion. The model is also used to calculate the expected atomic displacement and ionization in a hemoglobin crystal, revealing the time and length scales of the dynamics in the protein during the experiment.
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| 23. |
- Munke, Anna, et al.
(författare)
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Data Descriptor : Coherent diffraction of single Rice Dwarf virus particles using hard X-rays at the Linac Coherent Light Source
- 2016
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Ingår i: Scientific Data. - : Nature Publishing Group. - 2052-4463. ; 3
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Single particle diffractive imaging data from Rice Dwarf Virus (RDV) were recorded using the Coherent X-ray Imaging (CXI) instrument at the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS). RDV was chosen as it is a wellcharacterized model system, useful for proof-of-principle experiments, system optimization and algorithm development. RDV, an icosahedral virus of about 70 nm in diameter, was aerosolized and injected into the approximately 0.1 mu m diameter focused hard X-ray beam at the CXI instrument of LCLS. Diffraction patterns from RDV with signal to 5.9 angstrom ngstrom were recorded. The diffraction data are available through the Coherent X-ray Imaging Data Bank (CXIDB) as a resource for algorithm development, the contents of which are described here.
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| 24. |
- Sobolev, Egor, et al.
(författare)
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Megahertz single-particle imaging at the European XFEL
- 2020
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Ingår i: Communications Physics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2399-3650. ; 3:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The emergence of high repetition-rate X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) powered by superconducting accelerator technology enables the measurement of significantly more experimental data per day than was previously possible. The European XFEL is expected to provide 27,000 pulses per second, over two orders of magnitude more than any other XFEL. The increased pulse rate is a key enabling factor for single-particle X-ray diffractive imaging, which relies on averaging the weak diffraction signal from single biological particles. Taking full advantage of this new capability requires that all experimental steps, from sample preparation and delivery to the acquisition of diffraction patterns, are compatible with the increased pulse repetition rate. Here, we show that single-particle imaging can be performed using X-ray pulses at megahertz repetition rates. The results obtained pave the way towards exploiting high repetition-rate X-ray free-electron lasers for single-particle imaging at their full repetition rate.
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