Ptychographical imaging of the phase vortices in the x-ray beam formed by nanofocusing lenses

We present the ptychographical reconstruction of the x-ray beam formed by nanofocusing lenses (NFLs) containing a number of phase singularities (vortices) in the vicinity of the focal plane. As a test object Siemens star pattern was used with the finest features of 50 nm for ptychographical measurements. The extended ptychographical iterative engine (ePIE) algorithm was applied to retrieve both complex illumination and object functions from the set of diffraction patterns. The reconstruction revealed the focus size of 91.4±1.1 nm in horizontal and 70±0.3 nm in vertical direction at full width at half maximum (FWHM). The complex probe function was propagated along the optical axis of the beam revealing the evolution of the phase singularities.