Imaging of Biological Materials and Cells by X-ray Scattering and Diffraction

Abstract

Cells and biological materials are large objects in comparison to the size of internal components such as organelles and proteins. An understanding of the functions of these nanoscale elements is key to elucidating cellular function. In this review, we describe the advances in X-ray scattering and diffraction techniques for imaging biological systems at the nanoscale. We present a number of principal technological advances in X-ray optics and development of sample environments. We identify radiation damage as one of the most severe challenges in the field, thus rendering the dose an important parameter when putting different X-ray methods in perspective. Furthermore, we describe different successful approaches, including scanning and full-field techniques, along with prominent examples. Finally, we present a few recent studies that combined several techniques in one experiment in order to collect highly complementary data for a multidimensional sample characterization.

Keywords: X-ray imaging; X-ray optics; biological cells; biological materials; coherent diffractive imaging; diffraction; holography; ptychography; scattering; tomography.