Claims
- 1. An apparatus, comprising:
(a) a source of collimated radiation for irradiating a specimen of material positioned in a specimen plane; (b) a plurality of different stops, each one blocking radiation modulated by the irradiated specimen according to a predetermined blocking pattern; (c) one or more sensors capturing for each of the plurality of stops an indication of the intensity distribution of the modulated radiation in a plane that is a conjugate diffraction plane with respect to the specimen plane; and (d) a processor recovering phase information of the wave front of the modulated radiation from the captured intensity distributions and the predetermined blocking patterns imparted by the plurality of stops.
- 2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the specimen plane and the conjugate diffraction plane are conjugate planes related by a Fourier transformation.
- 3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the source of radiation is an X-ray source.
- 4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the specimen plane is substantially perpendicular to the radiation.
- 5. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising a display for displaying the modulated radiation using the recovered phase information.
- 6. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein the displayed modulated radiation provides an indication of the structure of the irradiated specimen at a predetermined magnification.
- 7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the radiation is an X-ray radiation.
- 8. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising memory for storing the intensity distribution of the modulated radiation in the conjugate diffraction plane for each stop.
- 9. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor comprises one or more Fast Fourier Transform processors.
- 10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein processing of the intensity distribution of the modulated radiation for each stop is done sequentially.
- 11. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein processing of the intensity distribution of the modulated radiation for each stop is done in parallel.
- 12. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the blocking pattern is selected at random.
- 13. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the blocking pattern is selected on a pixel-by-pixel basis, where individual pixels correspond to the resolution of said one or more sensors.
- 14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the blocking pattern is selected on a meta-pixel basis, at least some meta-pixels corresponding to a group of two or more pixels.
- 15. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein one of the stops introduces no blocking of the modulated radiation.
- 16. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the processor recovers phase information taking into account the number of stops for which each pixel is blocked.
Parent Case Info
[0001] This application is a continuation-in-part of application Ser. No. 09/708,290, filed Nov. 8, 2000, which claims priority of provisional application No. 60/163,978, filed Nov. 8, 1999, which applications are hereby incorporated by reference.
Provisional Applications (1)
|
Number |
Date |
Country |
|
60163978 |
Nov 1999 |
US |
Divisions (1)
|
Number |
Date |
Country |
Parent |
09858943 |
May 2001 |
US |
Child |
10408488 |
Apr 2003 |
US |
Continuation in Parts (1)
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Number |
Date |
Country |
Parent |
09708290 |
Nov 2000 |
US |
Child |
09858943 |
May 2001 |
US |