Supervisor: Henrik Stapelfeldt

Diffraction of light is a useful tool for determining the structure of small objects and material. For many years X-ray diffraction has been used to determine the structure of both simple and complex structures, like the crystal of rock salt or a large protein. There are however many small nano-sized objects which do not crystallize, which made it impossible to determine their structure via diffraction for many years.

With the recent advances in laser technology it is now possible to create extremely bright, coherent X-ray pulses of ultra-short length at large X-ray free electron laser facilities (X-FELs). With these laser pulses it is possible to perform diffraction experiments on non-crystalized nano-size objects, opening up for many new exciting experiments.

This presentation will cover the basics of diffraction, and explain how diffraction on single nano-sized objects can be done, including how the needed X-ray pulses can be produced at X-FEL facilities. Results from two recent experiments will be presented to illustrate the new possibilities with diffraction.