Development of MHz X-ray phase contrast imaging at the European XFEL

We report on recent developments that enable megahertz hard X-ray phase contrast imaging (MHz XPCI) experiments at the Single Particles, Clusters, and Biomolecules and Serial Femtosecond Crystallography (SPB/SFX) instrument of the European XFEL facility (EuXFEL). We describe the technical implementation of the key components, including an MHz fast camera and a modular indirect X-ray microscope system based on fast scintillators coupled through a high-resolution optical microscope, which enable full-field X-ray microscopy with phase contrast of fast and irreversible phenomena. The image quality for MHz XPCI data showed significant improvement compared with a pilot demonstration of the technique using parallel beam illumination, which also allows access to up to 24 keV photon energies at the SPB/SFX instrument of the EuXFEL. With these developments, MHz XPCI was implemented as a new method offered for a broad user community (academic and industrial) and is accessible via standard user proposals. Furthermore, intra-train pulse diagnostics with a high few-micrometre spatial resolution and recording up to 128 images of consecutive pulses in a train at up to 1.1 MHz repetition rate is available upstream of the instrument. Together with the diagnostic camera upstream of the instrument and the MHz XPCI setup at the SPB/SFX instrument, simultaneous two-plane measurements for future beam studies and feedback for machine parameter tuning are now possible.