Imaging single cells in a beam of live cyanobacteria with an X-ray laser

Diffraction pattern of a micron-sized S. elongatus cell at 1,100 eV photonenergy (1.13 nm wavelength) with ~10^11 photons per square micron on the samplein ~70 fs. The signal to noise ratio at 4 nm resolution is 3.7 with 0.24 photonsper Nyquist pixel. The cell was alive at the time of the exposure. The centralregion of the pattern (dark red) is saturated and this prevented reliable image reconstruction.

在1,100电子伏特光子能量（1.13纳米波长）下，对微米级S. elongatus细胞衍射图案进行观测，样品表面每平方微米约含有10^11个光子，曝光时间约为70飞秒。在4纳米分辨率下，信噪比为3.7，每尼奎斯特像素含有0.24个光子。在曝光时刻，细胞保持活性。图案中心区域（深红色）饱和，这阻碍了图像的可靠重建。