Stereo Imaging Camera Model for 3D Shape Reconstruction of Complex Crystals and Estimation of Facet Growth Kinetics

The principle that the 3D shape of crystals that grow from a solution can be characterised in real-time using stereo imaging has been demonstrated previously. It uses the 2D images of a crystal that are obtained from two or more cameras arranged in defined angles as well as a mathematical reconstruction algorithm. Here attention is given to the development of a new and more robust 3D shape reconstruction method for complicated crystal structures. The proposed stereo imaging camera model for 3D crystal shape reconstruction firstly rotates a digitised crystal in the three-dimensional space and varies the size dimensions in all face directions. At each size and orientation, 2D projections of the crystal, according to the angles between the 2D cameras, are recorded. The contour information of the 2D images is processed to calculate Fourier descriptors and radius-based signature that are stored in a database. When the stereo imaging instrument mounted on a crystalliser captures 2D images, the images are segmented to obtain the contour information and processed to obtain Fourier descriptors and radius-based information. The calculated Fourier descriptors and radius-based signature are used to find the best matching in the database. The corresponding 3D crystal shape is thus found. Potash alum crystals that each has 26 habit faces were used as a case study. The result shows that the new approach for 3D shape reconstruction is more accurate and significantly robust than previous methods. In addition, the growth rates of {111}, {110} and {100} faces were correlated with relative supersaturation to derive models of facet growth kinetics

Revealing three-dimensional structure of individual colloidal crystal grain by coherent x-ray diffractive imaging

We present results of a coherent x-ray diffractive imaging experiment performed on a single colloidal crystal grain. The full three-dimensional (3D) reciprocal space map measured by an azimuthal rotational scan contained several orders of Bragg reflections together with the coherent interference signal between them. Applying the iterative phase retrieval approach, the 3D structure of the crystal grain was reconstructed and positions of individual colloidal particles were resolved. As a result, an exact stacking sequence of hexagonal close-packed layers including planar and linear defects were identified.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

GENFIRE: A generalized Fourier iterative reconstruction algorithm for high-resolution 3D imaging

Tomography has made a radical impact on diverse fields ranging from the study of 3D atomic arrangements in matter to the study of human health in medicine. Despite its very diverse applications, the core of tomography remains the same, that is, a mathematical method must be implemented to reconstruct the 3D structure of an object from a number of 2D projections. In many scientific applications, however, the number of projections that can be measured is limited due to geometric constraints, tolerable radiation dose and/or acquisition speed. Thus it becomes an important problem to obtain the best-possible reconstruction from a limited number of projections. Here, we present the mathematical implementation of a tomographic algorithm, termed GENeralized Fourier Iterative REconstruction (GENFIRE). By iterating between real and reciprocal space, GENFIRE searches for a global solution that is concurrently consistent with the measured data and general physical constraints. The algorithm requires minimal human intervention and also incorporates angular refinement to reduce the tilt angle error. We demonstrate that GENFIRE can produce superior results relative to several other popular tomographic reconstruction techniques by numerical simulations, and by experimentally by reconstructing the 3D structure of a porous material and a frozen-hydrated marine cyanobacterium. Equipped with a graphical user interface, GENFIRE is freely available from our website and is expected to find broad applications across different disciplines.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figure

Compressive Hyperspectral Imaging Using Progressive Total Variation

Compressed Sensing (CS) is suitable for remote acquisition of hyperspectral images for earth observation, since it could exploit the strong spatial and spectral correlations, llowing to simplify the architecture of the onboard sensors. Solutions proposed so far tend to decouple spatial and spectral dimensions to reduce the complexity of the reconstruction, not taking into account that onboard sensors progressively acquire spectral rows rather than acquiring spectral channels. For this reason, we propose a novel progressive CS architecture based on separate sensing of spectral rows and joint reconstruction employing Total Variation. Experimental results run on raw AVIRIS and AIRS images confirm the validity of the proposed system.Comment: To be published on ICASSP 2014 proceeding

Electron tomography at 2.4 {\AA} resolution

Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is a powerful imaging tool that has found broad application in materials science, nanoscience and biology(1-3). With the introduction of aberration-corrected electron lenses, both the spatial resolution and image quality in TEM have been significantly improved(4,5) and resolution below 0.5 {\AA} has been demonstrated(6). To reveal the 3D structure of thin samples, electron tomography is the method of choice(7-11), with resolutions of ~1 nm^3 currently achievable(10,11). Recently, discrete tomography has been used to generate a 3D atomic reconstruction of a silver nanoparticle 2-3 nm in diameter(12), but this statistical method assumes prior knowledge of the particle's lattice structure and requires that the atoms fit rigidly on that lattice. Here we report the experimental demonstration of a general electron tomography method that achieves atomic scale resolution without initial assumptions about the sample structure. By combining a novel projection alignment and tomographic reconstruction method with scanning transmission electron microscopy, we have determined the 3D structure of a ~10 nm gold nanoparticle at 2.4 {\AA} resolution. While we cannot definitively locate all of the atoms inside the nanoparticle, individual atoms are observed in some regions of the particle and several grains are identified at three dimensions. The 3D surface morphology and internal lattice structure revealed are consistent with a distorted icosahedral multiply-twinned particle. We anticipate that this general method can be applied not only to determine the 3D structure of nanomaterials at atomic scale resolution(13-15), but also to improve the spatial resolution and image quality in other tomography fields(7,9,16-20).Comment: 27 pages, 17 figure