Yasushi Kagoshima

Abstract In coherent X-ray diffraction imaging, speckles on a coherent diffraction pattern must be sampled at intervals sufficiently finer than the Nyquist interval, which imposes an upper limit on the sample size. To overcome the size limitation, a sub-pixel shift method for upsampling coherent diffraction patterns was proposed. This paper reports on the evaluation of the noise tolerance of the upsampling algorithm by a simulation. The quality of the images reconstructed from the upsampled diffraction pattern and pattern recorded by a detector with an equivalent pixel size was comparable when the optimum number of upsampling iterations is adopted.

<title>Abstract</title>The quest for understanding the structural mechanisms of material properties and biological cell functions has led to the active development of coherent diffraction imaging (CDI) and its variants in the hard X-ray regime. Herein, we propose multiple-shot CDI, a full-field CDI technique dedicated to the visualisation of local nanostructural dynamics in extended objects at a spatio-temporal resolution beyond that of current instrumentation limitations. Multiple-shot CDI reconstructs a “movie” of local dynamics from time-evolving diffraction patterns, which is compatible with a robust scanning variant, ptychography. We developed projection illumination optics to produce a probe with a well-defined illumination area and a phase retrieval algorithm, establishing a spatio-temporal smoothness constraint for the reliable reconstruction of dynamic images. The numerical simulations and proof-of-concept experiment using synchrotron hard X-rays demonstrated the capability of visualising a dynamic nanostructured object at a frame rate of 10 Hz or higher.

Abstract The optical transfer function (OTF) of an inverse-phase composite zone plate under incoherent illumination was numerically evaluated by convoluting the point spread function (PSF) and transmission distribution of a model sample with gradually changing spatial frequency. The PSF used in the simulation was obtained from our previous study on deep-focusing X-ray microscopes. As expected, the contrast in the sample image was lesser than that produced by a conventional zone plate. Phase-reversed contrast—spurious resolution—appeared at a high spatial frequency. Although the calculated OTF is slightly aberrated, its deep-focusing capability is advantageous for X-ray microimaging of thick samples.

© 2020 Elsevier B.V. An oxide ion (O2−) conducting membrane cell, based on lanthanum silicate oxyapatite (La9.33+xSi6O26+1.5x, LSO), exhibiting low ohmic and polarization resistances in the intermediate-temperature region (~873 K) was developed. As a solid electrolyte, highly conductive Mg-doped LSO, La9·8(Si5·7Mg0.3)O26.4 (MDLS), modified with another kind of non-conductive lanthanum silicate, La2SiO5 was employed. Two kinds of silicate layers were successively spin-coated on a Ni-MDLS porous anode support, followed by thermal treatment aimed at improving ionic conductivity as well as densification of MDLS through solid state reactive diffusion. In addition, the Gd-doped CeO2, (Ce0.9Gd0.1)O1.95 (GDC) electrolyte layer, which plays an important role to prevent a reaction between the electrolyte and cathode materials, was spin-coated on the modified MDLS electrolyte. Finally, the cathode layer of porous (La,Sr)(Co,Fe)O3-δ was screen printed on the electrolyte layers. The resulting cell obtained from this study showed good fuel cell performance with a maximum power density of 94 mW cm−2 at 873 K, when operated with argon-diluted hydrogen and pure oxygen gasses.