Sensing the wavefront of x-ray free-electron lasers using aerosol spheres

Characterizing intense, focused x-ray free electron laser (FEL) pulses is crucial for their use in diffractive imaging. We describe how the distribution of average phase tilts and intensities on hard x-ray pulses with peak intensities of 10 ²¹ W/m² can be retrieved from an ensemble of diffraction patterns produced by 70 nm-radius polystyrene spheres, in a manner that mimics wave-front sensors. Besides showing that an adaptive geometric correction may be necessary for diffraction data from randomly injected sample sources, the paper demonstrates the possibility of collecting statistics on structured pulses using only the diffraction patterns they generate and highlights the imperative to study its impact on single-particle diffractive imaging