Development of Modulation-Based Bragg Coherent Diffraction Imaging for Highly strained Crystals

While Bragg coherent diffraction imaging (BCDI) has been successfully applied in different material systems, it is less successful for highly strained nanocrystals. Merging the wavefront modulation concept into BCDI will be a feasible strategy to break its limitation. Here, inspired by our recent theoretical and experimental results, we aim to exploit BCDI with a modulator (BCMI) to address; the technical applicability of the method for 3D crystals i.e. real samples, the inability of conventional BCDI for use with highly strained nanocrystals and demonstrate the experimental gain in spatial resolution. The successful implementation of such a method would allow the regular retrieval of crystals that today's BCDI phase retrieval methods cannot solve, allowing a broader range of materials to interrogated with this high-resolution characterization tool.