Date: April 10, 2007
Time: 1:30 pm - 2:30 pm

Sebastien Boutet will present a talk on:



Single molecule imaging with FEL: Current project status

Location: Kavli Auditorium
When: April 10th @ 1:30 pm



LCLS offers the opportunity with short brilliant x-ray pulses to image single biological objects such as cells, large protein complexes and eventually single proteins beyond the conventional radiation damage limit. Before this ultimate goal can be reached, many technical challenges must be overcome and many fundamental questions must be answered. I will discuss the experiments performed to this date in order to answer some of these questions. Specifically, I will discuss the design of the first ever femtosecond coherent diffractive imaging experiment and the technical considerations behind the design. I will present reconstructed images from a variety of samples from simple test objects to single biological cells. I will also discuss a novel experimental technique called time delay holography used to better understand the Coulomb explosion of the sample under the intense x-ray beam. The rate of explosion of the sample illuminated by the FEL beam is critical to single molecule imaging. After a discussion of the current status of the particle injection technology needed to perform single molecule imaging experiments, I will present some results from single particles hit on the fly at the FEL in Hamburg. Finally, I will conclude with a discussion of the next steps for the project and the short-term priorities and challenges.