Micro-liquid enclosure array and its semi-automated assembling system for x-ray free-electron laser diffractive imaging of samples in solution.

We developed micro-liquid enclosure arrays (MLEAs) for holding solution samples in coherent diffractive imaging (CDI) using x-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs). Hundreds of fully isolated micro-liquid enclosures are arranged in a single MLEA chip for efficient measurement, where each enclosure is destroyed after exposure to a single XFEL pulse. A semi-automated MLEA assembling system was also developed to enclose solution samples into MLEAs efficiently at high precision. We performed XFEL-based CDI experiments using MLEAs and imaged in-solution structures of self-assembled gold nanoparticles. The sample hit rate can be optimized by adjusting solution concentration, and we achieved a single-particle hit rate of 31%, which is not far from the theoretical upper limit of 37% derived from the Poisson statistics. MELAs allow us to perform CDI measurement under controlled solution conditions and will help reveal the nanostructures and dynamics of particles in solution.