Incoherent Diffraction Imaging with Pseudo-Thermal Light Sources

Laser-plasma X-ray sources are known to suffer from a low degree of spatial and temporal coherence. Ultimately, this feature limits their range of applications, especially for high-resolution imaging purposes. Recently, a new diffraction-based imaging technique named Incoherent Diffraction Imaging (IDI) [1] has been proposed to leverage the partial coherence of incoherently scattered light - or from partially coherent light sources. This method relies on second-order spatial correlations (g⁽²⁾) of the emitted light to extract structural information from scattering centers. The information about the spatial distribution of the target is therefore encoded in the spatial intensity fluctuations of the scattered light. This imaging technique will open the possibility to perform high resolution diffraction-based imaging with typically considered incoherent light sources such as laser-plasma X-ray sources.