Multi-beam ptychographic tomography for rapid nano-imaging of technical catalysts on extended length scale

Multibeam X-ray ptychography, a recent innovation, offers substantial potential for replacing the conventional single-beam method. This technique maximizes
synchrotron photon utilization, enabling significant gains in both scan field-of-view (FOV) and measurement speed, thus opening new avenues for functional studies. We've successfully applied this approach across a range of energies (7-20 keV) and sample types (Microchip, SiemensStar, Catalyst, etc.) using up to 12 parallel beams. To fully harness the method's capabilities, we aim to employ a complete ESRF-EBS monochromatic beam at 17 keV using 20 parallel beams. We will perform tomographic imaging of hundreds of μm diameter catalyst bodies. The result will set a new record in ptychographic 3D imaging regarding sample size and resolution elements per tomogram from the state-of-art 200M elements/tomogram to 200B elements/tomogram and boosting measurement speed from 15 million elements per hour to a remarkable 2.5B elements per hour.

多光束X射线叠层成像（Multibeam X-ray ptychography）作为一项新兴技术，具备取代传统单光束成像方法的巨大应用潜力。该技术可最大化同步辐射光子的利用率，显著拓展扫描视场（Field of View, FOV）并提升测量速度，从而为功能研究开辟全新路径。我们已成功采用最多12路并行光束，在7~20 keV的能量区间与多种样品类型（微芯片、西门子星标样、催化剂样品等）中应用该技术。为充分挖掘该技术的性能潜力，我们计划采用20路并行光束，依托17 keV的欧洲同步辐射装置-增强型束线（ESRF-EBS）单色光束开展实验，对直径达数百微米的催化剂颗粒进行层析成像研究。该成果将在叠层成像三维成像领域创下新纪录：在样品尺寸与单幅断层扫描图像分辨率元素数量两大维度实现突破，单幅断层扫描图像的分辨率元素数量从当前主流的2亿（200M）提升至2000亿（200B），测量速度也从每小时1500万元素提升至惊人的每小时25亿（2.5B）元素。