X-ray diffraction has long been one of the most widely used diagnostic tools in both the physical and life sciences. It can be used to determine structures of materials as simple as a grain of salt, and as complex as a virus or protein in the crystalline form. The majority of studies, using either conventional electron-impact sources or synchrotron radiation, yield information about the static structure of a sample. However, there has long been a desire for ultra-short X-ray pulses in order to follow the evolving electron density of structures as they are altered. Somewhat surprisingly, X-ray diffraction patterns with millisecond exposures were first produced over half a century ago, and for the past decade bunches of electrons circulating within synchrotrons, and plasmas created with large laser systems, have been used to generate X-ray pulses with tens of picoseconds to nanosecond duration.
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