Convergence of phase inversion for simple crystal shapes using coherent X-ray diffraction

The penetrating nature and atomic-scale wavelength of X-ray radiation makes the possibility of an X-ray microscope a very exciting prospect. Unfortunately, existing X-ray optics are far less efficient than their visible light counterparts. An attractive alternative to optics is computational inversion of the far-field coherent X-ray diffraction (CXD), which can be measured using modern X-ray sources. Thus we seek to defeat the so-called phase problem by iteratively seeking a set of phases consistent with the CXD measurement and some physical real-space constraints. We have found the behavior of fitting algorithms to be qualitatively different for simulated diffraction patterns and measured coherent X-ray intensity patterns. We will compare the convergence of the inversion of CXD patterns from simply shaped metal crystals with simulation.