N. Duane Loh, Dmitri Starodub, Lukas Lomb, Christina Y. Hampton, Andrew V. Martin, Raymond G. Sierra, Anton Barty, Andrew Aquila, Joachim Schulz, Jan Steinbrener, Robert L. Shoeman, Stephan Kassemeyer, Christoph Bostedt, John Bozek, Sascha W. Epp, Benjamin Erk, Robert Hartmann, Daniel Rolles, Artem Rudenko, Benedikt Rudek, Lutz Foucar, Nils Kimmel, Georg Weidenspointner, Guenter Hauser, Peter Holl, Emanuele Pedersoli, Mengning Liang, Mark S. Hunter, Lars Gumprecht, Nicola Coppola, Cornelia Wunderer, Heinz Graafsma, Filipe R.N.C. Maia, Tomas Ekeberg, Max Hantke, Holger Fleckenstein, Helmut Hirsemann, Karol Nass, Thomas A. White, Herbert J. Tobias, George R. Farquar, W. Henry Benner, Stefan Hau-Riege, Christian Reich, Andreas Hartmann, Heike Soltau, Stefano Marchesini, Sasa Bajt, Miriam Barthelmess, Lothar Strueder, Joachim Ullrich, Philip Bucksbaum, Matthias Frank, Ilme Schlichting, Henry N. Chapman, and Michael J. Bogan

DOI: 10.1364/OE.21.012385

Characterizing intense, focused x-ray free electron laser (FEL) pulses is crucial for their use in diffractive imaging. We describe how the distribution of average phase tilts and intensities on hard x-ray pulses with peak intensities of 1021 W/m2 can be retrieved from an ensemble of diffraction patterns produced by 70 nm-radius polystyrene spheres, in a manner that mimics wavefront sensors. Besides showing that an adaptive geometric correction may be necessary for diffraction data from randomly injected sample sources, our paper demonstrates the possibility of collecting statistics on structured pulses using only the diffraction patterns they generate and highlights the imperative to study its impact on single-particle diffractive imaging. Show Partial Abstract