In this study, we've applied coherent diffractive imaging to study the structure of a single Rice dwarf virus. The CXI instrument at the Linac coherent light source focuses 10¹² photons into a nanometer-sized area. Here the X-rays scatter of a single virus particle and create a snapshot of the virus. The acquired dataset of this study has been published in Nature scientific data, that allows access to the actual dataset. The publication yields information on how to access the data and background information as well. This result comes out of a large collaboration, the Single particle initiative, where scientists from around the world have united to pull on one string and push the method of Single particle imaging to the next level.

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An international collaboration has been formed by SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to develop single particle imaging (SPI). Under the name of the SPI-initiative, we were awarded beam time at the AMO endstation and successfully performed single particle imaging with viruses. The picture you can see on the left is a diffraction pattern from a ~70nm in diameter virus. I had a leading role in running the AMO beam line and LAMP endstation, and was helping with sample injection during the beam time. There is a nicely written article on SLACs website if you would like to read on.

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