XFEL (X-ray Free Electron Laser) has a great potential to many different scientific fields, such as materials science, structural biology and so on. The technology involved in the usage of XFEL is not simple extension of the present technology. It demands different kinds of breakthroughs. At the present stage, when the realization of XFEL is still 4 to 5 years away, various trials are undertaken by utilizing the existing 3
rd generation SR sources. This article is reviewing such activities focused on the imaging of non-crystalline materials by coherent X-ray beam. The aim of the activities is to visualize atomic structure from a single molecule, which seems to be a great deriving force to realize XFEL. In the present article, two different approaches are reviewed. One is the phase reconstruction by over-sampling method and the other is to record the phase by holographic technique by taking advantage of coherent beam.
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