Solution of the phase problem for coherent scattering from a disordered system of identical particles

While the implementation of single-particle coherent diffraction imaging for non-crystalline particles is complicated by current limitations on photon flux, hit rate and sample delivery, the concept of many-particle coherent diffraction imaging offers an alternative way of overcoming these difficulties. In this paper, we present a direct, non-iterative approach for the recovery of the diffraction pattern corresponding to a single particle using coherent x-ray data collected from a two-dimensional disordered system of identical particles; this approach does not require a priori information about the particles and can be applied to the general case of particles without symmetry. The reconstructed single-particle diffraction pattern can be directly used in common iterative phase retrieval algorithms to recover the structure of the particle.